Don't be yellow about your pine ID.

FAMILY: PINACEAE

Here is a quick guide to distinguishing the three most similar and common pines around Tallahassee. These are known as the Yellow Pines for their wood color and they are slash, loblolly and longleaf pines (Pinus elliotti, P. taeda and P. palustris respectively). Hopefully this blog will help you and there will be no need to whine about pine ID after reading this. Keep an eye out for more pine descriptions on this blog but this one should really cover most of your needs around Tallahassee.

Slash and longleaf pines are associated with the widespread flatwoods ecosystem in Florida which could also be called and pine savanna - it is often prone to fire which allows the ecosystem type to persist. Loblolly is more common on the uplands in north Florida.

Slash pine has a distinctive reddish plates on its bark and 2-3 needles per fascicle - the other two have flakier bark and 3 needles per fascicle. Sessile cones on loblolly (6-10 cm) often persist on the tree year round, usually in pairs or threes, it has flaky but often furrowed bark. Longleaf pine have stalked cones longer than 15 cm and its 3 needles per fasicle are 15-30 cm long, with a distinctive silvery terminal bud.

Now let's let the pictures do all the talking.

Distinguishing yellow pines, slash, longleaf and loblolly -cones and needle drawings.

Distinguishing yellow pines, slash, longleaf and loblolly - photos.

Pinus palustris longleaf pine bark

Pinus taeda loblolly pine bark

Pinus elliottii slash pine bark (the easy one).

Pines on FSU grounds in Tallahassee (click on point for more information - link for more).

FLOWERING DOGWOOD - spring is here - soon.

FAMILY: CORNACEAE the dogwood family

One good clue that spring is here is when the dogwoods start to flower, you might get a few early ones coming out in February but usually March is the time. This year (2012) it has been kind of springy already in early February but we could be in for few more frosts. The flowering cycle of a plant is called its "phenology" (though the term applies to other cyclic natural phenomena)  you can find out more about when plants normally flower in our region at a website about Panhandle plants . Often the last frost in Tallahassee is in March....though they may occur in April. Say good-bye to cool-cold nights.

Cornus florida habit

According to the Florida Natural Area Inventory plant is typical of slope forests, scrub, uplands and sandhills, suggesting this beauty is a pretty versatile midstory tree in Florida forests. One characteristic that these vegetation types share is reasonable drainage, often with sandy soils or better than average topographic relief (for Florida).

Description: Small deciduous tree to 12 m with blocky bark. Flowers: Showy yellow heads of twenty or so miniature flowers are in the middle of creamy white subtended bracts that look like petals. The variety C. florida var. rubra has showy pink bracts. Fruit: An ellipsoid bright red berry. Leaves:3-10cm long and 2-7 cm wide opposite, broadly elliptic.

Similar to: the blocky bark can look like black haw (Viburnum rufidulum) and persimmon (Diospyros virginiana), the flowers are pretty clear indicators but the leaves can look like other dogwoods (especially stiff cornel dogwood; Cornus foemina.

Cornus florida flowers (the yellow part are various small flowers) with larger white bracts that look like what we typically think of as a "flower".

Flowering dogwood fruit.

A map of dogwood (click on the points to see more information).