Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 85.djvu/361

Rh tree over several acres, especially in Okefinokee Swamp, where it seems to attain its maximum dimensions.

It grows in poor soils, usually sand, inundated part of the year, but rarely if ever to a greater depth than five or six feet. (High-water mark is indicated by the height of the enlarged base of the trunk rather than by the knees, which are less characteristically developed in this species than in T. distichum.) Its favorite habitats are shallow ponds which dry up in spring, and the swamps of coffee-colored (i.e., not muddy) creeks and small rivers. The regions where it grows have an average temperature of 60°-75°, a growing season of 240 to 360 days, and an annual rainfall of 40 to 65 inches, over 40 per cent. of which falls in the four warmest months, June to September.

The pond cypress has a thicker bark than its better-known relative, and mature trees are practically immune to fire. The ponds in which it grows are likely to be swept in the dry season by fire, which chars the bark at the bases of the trees a little, but does no perceptible harm.

The wood is very similar to that of T. distichum (a little stronger and heavier, if anything), and not satisfactorily distinguished in the lumber trade, but the tree is usually too small, crooked or hollow to be worked up into lumber profitably. It is used principally for shingles, posts, poles, piles, cross-ties, etc. No statistics of its production are available, but it is evidently cut most extensively in Georgia and Florida.

The Southern Spruce Pine (Pinus glabra) is sometimes called white pine, or "bottom white pine," on account of its resemblance to the well-known northern tree, to which it is not very closely related, however. It ranges from southern South Carolina to central Florida and eastern Louisiana, in the coastal plain, and never forms pure stands, but associates with hardwood trees, especially the magnolia. It prefers soils well supplied with humus and protected from fire, like the white pine and hemlock, and is usually found in hammocks.

Its wood is softer than that of most other southern pines, and might be used as a substitute for white pine if it were more abundant and better known.

The Slash Pine (Pinus Elliottii) is also strictly confined to the coastal plain, ranging from southern South Carolina to southeastern Mississippi, inland about 165 miles in Georgia, and southward to about latitude 27° in Florida. It is sometimes the only tree on several acres, but is commonly associated with the pond cypress just mentioned, in shallow ponds or in swamps of small streams that are never muddy.