Leaves soft, slender, dark green, 1½′—3′ long, marked by numerous rows of stomata, deciduous at the end of their second and in the spring of their third year. Flowers: male in short crowded clusters, yellow; female raised on slender slightly ascending peduncles. Fruit single or in clusters of 2 or 3, reflexed on short stout stalks, subglobose to oblong-ovoid, ½′—2′ long, becoming reddish brown and rather lustrous, with thin slightly concave scales armed with minute straight or incurved usually deciduous prickles; seeds nearly triangular, full and rounded on the sides, ⅛′ long, with a thin dark gray shell mottled with black and wings broadest below the middle, ⅝′ long, ¼′ wide. A tree, usually 80°—100° or occasionally 120° high, with a trunk 2°—2½° or rarely 3½° in diameter, comparatively small horizontal branches, and slender flexible branchlets at first light red more or less tinged with purple, ultimately dark reddish brown. Bark of young trees and upper trunks smooth pale gray becoming on old stems ½′—¾′ thick, slightly and irregularly divided by shallow fissures into flat connected ridges. Wood light, soft, not strong, brittle, close-grained, light brown, with thick nearly white sapwood; occasionally used for fuel and rarely manufactured into lumber. Distribution. Valley of the lower Santee River, South Carolina to middle and northwestern Florida; banks of the Alabama River, Dallas County, Alabama; eastern and southwestern Mississippi, and sandy banks of streams in northeastern Louisiana; usually growing singly or in small groves; attaining its largest size and often occupying areas of considerable extent in northwestern Florida. 23. Pinus echinata Mill. Yellow Pine. Short-leaved Pine. [Illustration: Fig. 30] Leaves in clusters of 2 and of 3, slender, flexible, dark blue-green, 3′—5′ long, beginning to fall at the end of their second season and dropping irregularly until their fifth year. Flowers: male in short crowded clusters, pale purple; female in clusters of 2 or 3 on stout ascending stems, pale rose color. Fruit ovoid to oblong-conic, subsessile and nearly horizontal or short-stalked and pendant, generally clustered, 1½′—2½′ long, becoming dull brown, with thin scales nearly flat below and rounded at the apex, armed with short straight or somewhat recurved frequently deciduous prickles; seeds nearly triangular, full and rounded on the sides, about 3/16′ long, with a thin pale brown hard shell conspicuously mottled with black, their wings broadest near the middle, ½′ long, ⅛′ wide.