Meet the Sand Pine! 🌿 скачать в хорошем качестве

Meet the Sand Pine! 🌿

TERMINOLOGY TUESDAY 🌿 w/ the Florida Native Plant Society! Meet the Sand Pine! Sand Pine Pinus clausa Family: Pinaceae Sand Pine is a small to medium-sized species that can reach up to 60 feet tall and occurs across Florida. As the common name suggests, it grows in sandy xeric soils, scrub, coastal dunes, sand ridges, and sandhills. 🌿Characteristic Features BARK: The mature bark is dark grey to reddish brown, furrowed into irregular, narrow, and vertical scaly plates. NEEDLES: 2-4 inches long, occurring in bundles of two. They are yellow-green, straight (but twisted), and typically held away, almost perpendicular to the smooth, slender stems. The thin twigs are numerous and densely arranged. FEMALE CONES: the small 2-4 inch cones are ovoid, with an acute tip, and are usually serotinous; they open and release their seeds when exposed to fire. The mature cones can remain closed on the tree for 10 or more years, waiting for fire to create the open and fertile conditions most favorable for seedling success. Because they stay so long on the tree, the cones typically age to a pale grey with a few dull spines remaining. Many of these characteristics are very similar, if not identical, to Spruce Pine, Pinus glabra. The easiest way to differentiate the two is by their habitat; Sand Pine nly occurs in xeric, sandy, upland soils, while Spruce Pine grows in lower, moist, and rich soils. Thanks for tuning in! 👋🏻 Video & description by Lilly Anderson-Messec, FNPS Director of North Florida Programs #sandpine #pinusclausa #pine #pineID #plantidentification #terminologytuesday