Range map, redrawn from Burns & Honkala (1990).
Common Names
Sand pine (Kral 1993), spruce pine, scrub pine.Taxonomic notes
Syn: Pinus inops Aiton var. clausa Chapman ex Engelmann 1877; P.clausa var. immuginata D.B. Ward (Kral 1993).Description
"Trees to 21 m; trunk to 0.5 m diam., straight and erect to leaning and crooked, much branched; crown mostly rounded or irregular. Bark gray to gray-brown, furrowed, with narrow, flat, irregular ridges, resin pockets absent, on upper sections of the trunk reddish to red-brown, platy becoming smooth distally. Branches spreading to ascending, poorly self-pruning; twigs slender, violet- to red-brown, rarely glaucous, aging gray, smooth. Buds cylindric, purple-brown, to 1cm; scale margins white-fringed. Leaves 2 per fascicle, spreading-ascending, persisting 2-3 years, (3-)6-9(-10) cm x ca. 1 mm, straight, slightly twisted, dark green, all surfaces with fine, inconspicuous stomatal lines, margins finely serrulate, apex short-conic; sheath 0.3-0.5(-0.7) cm, base persistent. Pollen cones ellipsoid, ca. 10 mm, brownish yellow. Seed cones maturing in 2 years, shedding seeds soon thereafter or often long-serotinous, 4 long-persistent, solitary or whorled, spreading, symmetric (rarely slightly asymmetric, reflexed), lanceoloid before opening, ovoid to broadly ovoid when open, 3-8 cm, red-brown, sessile or on stalks to 1 cm, scales with dark red-brown, purple, or purple-gray border distally on adaxial surface; apophyses thickened, shallowly and angulately raised, transversely rhombic, cross-keeled; umbo central, low-pyramidal, tapering to sharp tip or weak, often deciduous prickle. Seeds obovoid-oblique; body ca. 4 mm, dark brown to nearly black; wing to 17 mm. 2n=24" (Kral 1993).Range
USA: Alabama and Florida, at 0-60 m. Found on sandy soils. Stands typically establish after fire (Kral 1993). See also Thompson et al. (1999).Big Tree
Diameter 70 cm, height 29 m, crown spread 12 m; also diameter 62 cm, height 30 m, crown spread 13 m; both located in Starkey Wilderness Park, FL (American Forests 1996).Oldest
Dendrochronology
Ethnobotany
"Although Pinus clausa is too profusely branched to be important for saw timber, it is managed to produce a high volume of pulpwood in northern peninsular Florida" (Kral 1993).Observations
Remarks
Citations
See Also
The FEIS database.
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This page is from the Gymnosperm Database
URL: http://www.conifers.org/pi/pin/clausa.htm
Edited by Christopher J. Earle
Last modified on 2007.05.28