This species ranges from southeastern New York to northern Florida, to West Virginia and eastern Tennessee, and through the Gulf States to eastern Louisiana, eastern Texas, southern Missouri and southwestern Illinois. It is extensively manufactured into material of all kinds that enters into the construction of buildings. It differs from P. virginiana in its longer leaves, brittle branches, and much greater height, from P. glabra in its rough upper trunk, and from both by the frequent presence of trimerous leaf-fascicles.
Of the six or seven pines of the southeastern United States, this species covers a larger area and ascends the slopes of the Alleghany Mountains far enough to meet the northern species, P. virginiana, P. rigida, and P. strobus. Unlike the western members of this group, P. echinata and its associates are not variable. Their characters are singularly constant, as their limited synonymy and total lack of varietal names attest.
Fig. 260, Cone. Fig. 261, Leaf-fascicle and magnified leaf-section from a ternate fascicle. Fig. 262, Magnified leaf-section from a binate fascicle. Fig. 263, Multinodal branchlet bearing lateral and subterminal conelets and a ripe cone. Figs. 257, showing mucronate scales of the conelet, and 259, showing dermal tissues of the leaf, are applicable also to this species.
XII. INSIGNES
Pits of the ray-cells small. Cones tenaciously persistent, serotinous in various degrees. Conelets mucronate or spinose.