Longleaf Pine

ABOUT LONGLEAF PINE PROJECT AT BERRY COLLEGE, MT. BERRY, GEORGIA

The population of Longleaf Pines on the northern slope of Lavender Mountain in Floyd County, Georgia was recorded and studied for the first time by Eliza F. Andrews in 1913. Lavender Mountain, a part of the Southern Appalachians spreads 19 km (12 miles) in an east-west direction and its highest point is 517 m (1695 ft) above sea level. Andrews concluded that on Lavender Mountain Longleaf Pine probably reached its upland and inland growth limit in Georgia. In the past, the southern slope of Lavender had been covered with a Longleaf Pine forest that was cut for lumber. Presently, Lavender Mountain is at the Berry College Campus.

The beginning of the Longleaf Pine Project, according to Dr Martin Cipollini, Associate Professor of Biology at Berry College started in the spring of 2001 when the Students Against Violating Earth (SAVE) Organization proposed the reintroduction of the Longleaf Pine on Lavender Mountain. Students, Faculty, and Staff from Berry College along with other volunteers planted 2000 seedlings of Longleaf Pine on the Mountain Campus, near Friendship Hall and on the top of west ridge.

"By our most recent counts, about 70% of those trees are still alive and many are growing more than 10 ft. tall. The area was prescribe-burned in the Spring of 2006, and we've since planted an additional 6,000 seedlings in that area. We've planted about 25,000 seedlings altogether on the campus since 2001."
- Dr Martin Cipollini, 2007.

Pinus palustris P. Miller, Longleaf Pine at Lavender Mountain,
( February 26, 2007)

Scientific name: Pinus palustris P. Mill.
Synonym: Pinus australis Michx. f.
Common name: Longleaf Pine; Long-leaved Pine; Georgia Pine; Yellow Pine

Family: Pinaceae; Pine
Flowering period: April
Fruiting period: October
Comments: Philip Miller (1691-1771) was a Superintendent of the Chelsea Physic garden in London, and the author of eight editions of " Gardener's Dictionary". In the Dictionary's eighth edition, in 1768, Miller published his description of Long-leaf Pine and for the first time he named it Pinus palustris, (Marsh Pine) according to the Linnaeus binary combination that become botanical code in 1753. Miller also included the species description of the famous French agronomist, a scientist, and author, Duhamel du Monceau, Henri-Louis (1700-1782). Another description of Long-leaf Pine was done by the French botanist, Francois Andre Michaux (1770-1855), in his work "Histoire des Arbes forestiers de l'Amerique septentrionale" in 1810, and he renamed it Pinus australis, (Southern pine). The English edition of his work was published in 1818.

Descriptions:
"14. Pinus (Palustris ) foliis ternis longiffimis. Pine-tree with the longest leaves growing by threes out of each sheat. Pinus Americana palustris trifolia, foliis longiffimis. Du Hamel. Three-leaved, Marsh, American Pine with the longest leaves."
"...The fourteenth fort grows naturally on swamps in many parts of North America, where I have been informed they grow to the height of twenty-five or thirty feet. Their leaves are a foot or more in length, growing in tufts at the end of the branches, so have a singular appearance, but I have not heard the wood was of any use but for fuel; and there are few places here where these plants do well, for in very severe frosts their leading shoots are often killed, and in dry ground they will not thrive; so that unless the foil is adapted for them, it is to little purpose planting them." - Philip Miller, 1768.

"The leaves are about a foot long, of a beautiful brilliant green, united to the number of three in the same sheath, and collected in bunches at the extremity of the branches: they are longer and more numerous on the young stocks, which are sometimes cut by the [blacks] for brooms. The buds are very large, white, fringed, and not resinous. The bloom takes place in April; the male flowers form masses of divergent violet-colored aments about 2 inches long; in drying they shed great quantities of yellowish pollen, which is diffused by the wind and forms a momentary covering on the surface of the land and water. The cones are very large, being 7 or 8 inch long, and are armed with small retorted spines. In the fruitful year they are ripe about the 15th of October, and shed their seeds the same month. The kernel is of an agreeable taste, and is contained in a thin white shell surmounted by a membrane; in every other species of American Pine the shell is black. Sometimes the seeds are very abundant, and are voraciously eaten by wild turkeys, squirrels, and the swine that live almost wholly in the woods. But in the unfruitful year, a forest of a hundred miles in extent may be ransacked without finding a single cone….." – Francois Andre Michaux. North American Sylva. Paris 1819: Vol. III., p.135.

References :
1.Andrews, Eliza F. "Agency of Fire in Propagation of Longleaf Pines." Botanical Gazette, Vol. 64, No. 6. (1917): 497-508.
2. Cipollini, Martin. Personal interview. 02 July, 2007.
3. Johnson, Martha Josephine. " Naturalists and Plant Explorers in Georgia until 1850 ( with Illustrations of Some Native Plants Observed)." Dissertation University of Georgia, Athens 1972. (250.)
4. Miller, Philip. Gardener's Dictionary. 8th ed. London: P. Miller, 1768: Pinus No.14.
5. School of Mathematical and Natural Sciences, Berry College, Mt. Berry, Georgia. Longleaf Pine Project(http://www.berry.edu/academics/science/longleaf/)
6. Illustration: Britton, N.L., and A. Brown. 1913. Illustrated flora of the northern states and Canada. Vol. 1: 57. USDA-NRCS. 2006. The PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov June 03, 2006). National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70874-4490 USA.
6. Image by Zvezdana Ukropina-Crawford

Last updated on January 11, 2008.

Botanical Exploration in Floyd County, Georgia
List of Hawthorns from Floyd County, Northwest Georgia, United States