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In this area it is also known as "yellow pine" or "long leaf yellow pine", although it is properly just one out of a number of species termed yellow pine. It reaches a height of 30–35 m (98–115 ft) and a diameter of 0.7 m (28 in).
Longleaf pine is an evergreen conifer that got its common name for having the longest leaves of the eastern pine species. The needlelike leaves, which come in bundles of three, can grow up to 18 inches (46 centimeters) long. Mature trees stand 80 to 100 feet (24 to 30 meters) tall.
Longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) has the longest needles of all southern pines. It is also the most disease-resistant southern pine you can plant.
Longleaf pine is the longest-lived of the southern pine species. Individual longleaf pines can reach 250 years in age (with trees in excess of 450 years old documented). To reach that point of old age the life history of longleaf pine can be described in several stages.
Longleaf pine is native to a wide variety of sites ranging from wet, poorly drained flatwoods to dry, rocky mountain ridges. Elevations range from barely above sea level near the beaches on the lower Coastal Plain up to about 600 m (1,970 ft) in the mountains of Alabama.
The longleaf pine is an evergreen, gymnosperm tree in the Pinaceae (pine) family that may grow 60 to 120 feet tall with short, stout, spare branches forming an open, irregular crown. It is native to the southern United States and ranges from Virginia west to Texas and south to Florida.
Many longleaf pine forests were logged and replaced with commercial forest trees such as loblolly and slash pine. TNC restores these sites with longleaf pine and has planted millions of longleaf seedlings across the Southeast.
The cones of longleaf pine are the largest of the southern pine and range in size from 5 to 12 inches in length. Because of their large size, only animals like the fox squirrel are sizable enough to manipulate and open the longleaf pine cones to eat the seeds before they fall to the ground.
Not everyone is familiar with longleaf pine trees. What does a longleaf pine look like? These evergreens are beautiful, native North American pine trees with extremely long needle leaves. They make attractive specimen trees in the landscape and work well as shade trees.
Longleaf pine are not only a valuable source of timber, but create diverse wildlife habitat too. Here are some of our top tips for growing longleaf stands.