Aspiring botanist and ecologist with a passion for science communication. The door to learning about the natural world is always open; let’s go outside and play

Mar 1, 2016

Sticky Pine Situation

Pitch Pine

or Pinus rigida
they’re mostly found in the Northeastern United States
between Maine and Kentucky
with a few populations up into Ontario and Quebec
they make up most of the trees in the New Jersey Pine Barrens
that’s one place I would love to visit
it’s just acres of dense pine forest that harbors all sorts of interesting other plant species
like orchids and pitcher plants
despite the sandy, acidic soil of the Barrens
the pitch pines do just fine
in fact
they love that sort of soil

just to make pitch pines even more hardy
they’re actually fire resistant
their cones actually require the high heat created by forest fires to open and disperse their seeds
early New England colonists loved these trees
when they arrived in the new world
the forests were imposing and intimidating
but as they developed a sense of the vast amount of resources hiding in the forest
they came across the pitch pine
a plant that stood in areas previously burned by Native American tribes to clear land for agriculture
curious that there would be any plant life there
these trees required more investigating
it turns out that pitch pines are extremely useful
they contain an unusually high concentration of chemical compounds necessary for making pitch, tar, rosin, and turpentine
all necessary elements if you plan on building a ship that can float
and thus the New England shipping industry was born

Or at least part of it was born. We can’t give all of the maritime industry success to P. rigida. We’ve spent a lot of time abusing this tree species, especially in the days of bog iron mining. You know the aforementioned Pine Barrens? They were heavily mined for iron in the early 1800s with smelters and forges fueled by pitch pine wood. That means thousands of acres of pines were felled every year. Luckily, these trees are resilient. They are capable of regrowing from stumps and from already dispersed seeds that have been lying on the forest floor.

That said, our influence has still done a number on the pitch pine. Modern day populations that have regrown from previously deforested areas are full of misshapen, gnarled trees, crumpled memories of past mistakes, ominous premonitions for what future forest biomes could turn into.