This Week's Mystery Plant

Pick a tree--any tree--and try to describe it using only 8 words. That's what botanist Thomas Walter did in 1788, after studying and then naming this plant. His eight words (in Latin, see below) indicate that the tree has paired needles, a short, oblong or egg-shaped cone, and a smooth trunk. (Walter, of course, was the first American author of a North American treatment of a regional group of plants, and he did this in South Carolina. He was a resident of old Berkeley County, learning the local flora of the outer coastal plain. His publication, called "Flora Caroliniana", was published in London, and it represents the beginning point for several hundred scientific plant names, still in use today.)

Now, our mystery tree is a pine, of course. Most pine species are residents of high ground, but this one is a bit unusual, in growing in rather wet places, often along river bottoms in sandy soil, although it also occurs on low-country river bluffs, together with beech, oaks, and hickories. Additionally, the trees are able to handle considerable shade: most pines demand plenty of sun throughout their life span. (Foresters will say that a tree species that is at home in shade is said to be "tolerant." This is obviously an important feature, especially for seedlings and small plants, while they are likely to have plenty of bigger, taller neighbors, hogging the available sunlight.) Our mystery pine, once mature, can be quite large, up to 100' tall. Its bark is rather thin, and the trees are thus sensitive to fire. The lower trunk may be lightly checkered, while the uppermost part of the trunk is smooth, something like a white pine. Sure enough, as Walter said, the needles are paired, in twos, and the tiny cones are short and somewhat egg-shaped. These cones have smooth scales, so they aren't prickly, as in some other pines. Its wood tends to be brittle, and is therefore not very highly prized for lumber.

Our pine may be found from South Carolina, south of the Santee River drainage, through northern Florida, the southern parts of Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, and into eastern Louisiana. Here in South Carolina, a good place to see it would be along the Edisto River around Givhans Ferry State Park.

Walter's description? "Foliis geminatis, strobilo oblongo-ovato brevi, cortice glabro." (Photo by John Nelson.)

Photo by John Nelson