PINACEAE - - Pine Family

Pinus palustris P. Miller — Longleaf Pine

Longleaf Pine (Pinus palustris) - Tree becoming 40 m. tall, irregularly branched above, the bark in large plates; leaves typically in 3's, 20—40 cm. long, bright-green, borne in terminal plumes, on twigs about 1 cm. in diameter; staminate ament 5.5—8 cm. long; cone 16—25 cm. long, ascending when young, narrowly conic when closed, broadly conic when open, each scale-appendage with a recurved spine; see 12—13 mm. long, the wing 4.5—5 cm. long. The giant of our pines, as the one with the longest leaves and largest cones. A timber tree of the first importance, and the principle source of rosin and turpentine in the U.S.

Habitat:

Formerly throughout the Coastal Plain, Sandhills, and lower Piedmont, on a wide variety of soils (sandy, loamy, clayey, or peaty), from very dry to very wet conditions, in savannas, woodlands, and forests affected by relatively frequent natural (lightning caused) fires (likely augmented by native Americans), now reduced to less than a tenth of its former abundance by a variety of forces, including turpentining, timbering, free-range hogs, fire suppression, and "site conversion" by foresters to other trees, now extremely rare in VA and north of the Neuse River in NC, still occurring in some abundance in the outer Coastal Plain from Carteret County, NC south into GA, in the Bladen Lakes area of Bladen and Cumberland counties, and in the Sandhills of Harnett, Hoke, Scotland, Richmond, Moore, Anson, and Montgomery counties, NC and south into GA. A Southeastern Coastal Plain endemic: se. VA south to FL and west to se. TX; it extends slightly into the Piedmont in most states where it occurs, and further into the Piedmont and low mountains in GA and AL.

Habitat information from:
Weakley, Alan S., Flora of the Southern and Mid-Atlantic States, Working Draft of 21 May 2015.

The range of Pinus palustris (Longleaf Pine)

Kartesz, J.T., The Biota of North America Program (BONAP). 2015. North American Plant Atlas. (http://bonap.net/napa). Chapel Hill, N.C. [maps generated from Kartesz, J.T. 2015. Floristic Synthesis of North America, Version 1.0. Biota of North America Program (BONAP). (in press)].

The Georgia range of Pinus palustris (Longleaf Pine)

Zomlefer, W.B., J.R. Carter, & D.E. Giannasi. 2014 (and ongoing). The Atlas of Georgia Plants. University of Georgia Herbarium (Athens, Georgia) and Valdosta State University Herbarium (Valdosta, Georgia). Available at: http://www.georgiaherbaria.org/.