Bill's Botanical Forays

Today, while driving along the Skyline Drive in the Southern District, we pulled off on to the Trayfoot Mountain Overlook. A single Table Mountain Pine (Pinus pungens Lamb.) tree stood over the parking lot. It made a good photographic subject.

The Table Mountain Pine is native to the Appalachian ridge and adjacent Piedmont from Pennsylvania southwest to South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee. There are a handful of outlying populations in Delaware and New Jersey.

It normally has two needles and occasionally three needles per bundle and are about 1 1/2 to 3 1/2 inches long. Superficially, especially from a distance it can resemble a Virginia Scrub Pine. The cones are armed with very stout and sharp spines. The old cones will remain attached to the branches for several years.

This is a new pine for my lifetime list.

Bill