Productivity of Natural Stands of Longleaf Pine in Relation to Competition and Climatic Factors

Abstract

Prior to the arrival of settlers to the United States, natural communities dominat by longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) and maintained by periodic fire occurre throughout most of the southern Atlantic and Gulf coastal plains. These com munities once covered an estimated twenty-four to thirty-six million hectare (h or two-thirds of the area in the Southeast (Vance, 1895; Chapman, 1932). Th range of longleaf pine covers a broad arc along the coastal plain and portions the Piedmont region from southern Virginia, south to central Florida, westward eastern Texas, and extends further inland in the Cumberland Plateau and Ridg and Valley physiographic provinces in Alabama and Georgia. Dissimilar to th other southern pines, longleaf pine tolerates a wide variety of habitats. It is foun growing on dry mountain slopes and ridges in Alabama and northwest Georgia, the low, wet flatwoods, as well as the excessively drained sandhills found alon the coast and fall line. Chapman (1 932) commented that longleaf pine covere more acreage than any other North American ecosystem dominated by a sing tree species.