Around the glade stood a ring of tall trees, as regular as if they had been planted; and beyond these, as far as the eye could penetrate the depths of the forest, were others of like size and aspect. The trunks of all were nearly of one thickness—few of them reaching a diameter of two feet, but all rising to the height of many yards, without leaf or branch. They stood somewhat densely over the ground, but in daylight the eye might have ranged to a considerable distance through the intervals, for there was no underwood—save the low dwarf palmetto—to interrupt the view. They were straight, and almost cylindrical as palms; and they might have been mistaken for trees of this order, had it not been for their large heads of leaves terminating in cone-shaped summits.
They were not palms—they were pines—“broom” pines (Pinus Australis), a species of trees with which I was perfectly familiar, having ridden many hundreds of miles shaded by the pendant fascicles of their acicular foliage.
The sight of these trees, therefore, would have created no curiosity, had I not noticed in their appearance something peculiar. Instead of the deep green which should have been exhibited by their long, drooping leaves, they appeared of a brownish yellow.
Was it fancy? or was it the deceptive light of the moon that caused this apparent change from their natural hue?
One or the other, soliloquised I, on first noticing them; but as I continued to gaze, I perceived that I was in error. Neither my own fancy nor the moon’s rays were at fault; the foliage was really of the colour it appeared to be. Drawing nearer to them, I observed that the leaves were withered, though still adhering to the twigs. I noticed, moreover, that the trunks were dry and dead-like—the bark scaled or scaling off—that the trees, in short, were dead and decaying.
I remembered what Hickman had stated while groping for the direction. That was at some distance off; but, as far as I could see, the woods presented the same dim colour.
I came to the conclusion that the whole forest was dead.
The inference was correct, and the explanation easy. The sphinx (Note 1) had been at work. The whole forest was dead.
Note 1. Sphinae coniferarum. Immense swarms of insects, and especially the larva of the above species, insinuate themselves under the bark of the “long-leafed” (broom) pine, attack the trunk, and cause the tree to perish in the course of a year. Extensive tracts are met with in Florida covered solely with dead pines that have been thus destroyed.