Longleaf pine is the legendary southern yellow pine of forest history. While the tall, stately longleaf pine once covered 30 to 60 million acres of the southeastern United States Coastal Plain, 200 years of logging and land clearing have greatly reduced its range. Longleaf pine takes 100 to 150 years to become full size and can live to 300 years old. Modern methods of reforestation are helping to restore longleaf pine to previously cleared land. In the future, we may expect to see more of these majestic trees in the Florida landscape.

Longleaf pine is common in flatwoods, sandhill, and upland hardwood ecosystems. It occurs naturally on nutrient poor soils of flat and sandy sites ranging from wet, poorly drained flatwoods to dry rocky mountain ridges below 660-ft elevation.While stands of the Longleaf Pine-Turkey Oak ecological communities are found throughout Florida, they are most common in the central portion of the state north of Lake Placid and in the interior area of the panhandle.

Like slash pine, longleaf pines were a major resource for naval stores in the past. When supplies of eastern white pines dwindled in the northeast, certain longleaf pine stands were reserved by the English crown to supply masts for sailing ships.

A wide variety of wildlife depends on the Longleaf Pine-Turkey Oak ecosystem. Fire plays a major role in the development of this community, and is essential to the survival of certain wildlife species, too. Gopher tortoises, Florida mice, gopher frogs, and eastern diamond-back rattlesnakes are among the native animals in the ecosystem. Endangered species such as red-cockaded woodpeckers and indigo snakes are threatened by the loss of the longleaf pine habitat. The seeds are an excellent food source for squirrels, turkey, quail, and brown-headed nuthatches.

The thick, reddish-brown, scaly bark of mature trees helps insulate the tree from the heat of fires, providing some fire resistance, as do the thick, silver-white hairs found on buds when longleaf pine is in its grass-stage.
The grass-stage is the immature phase of longleaf pines. The thick silver-white buds, 1 ½" to 2" long, characterize longleaf pine.

Unlike most conifers, the first 3 to 7 years of longleaf pine growth do not involve stem elongation. Rather, it remains a fire resistant, stemless, dense cluster of needles resembling tufts of grass. During this stage, seedlings are developing a deep taproot system below the ground and are capable of sprouting from the root collar the top is damaged.

Once the root system is thoroughly established, the tree begins normal stem elongation and its sprouting ability sharply decreases. The taproot is usually 8' to 12' long upon maturity. In early growth up to 8 ft high, the seedlings become susceptible to fire damage. Once longleaf pines reach 8 feet in height, it is again fire resistant. Longleaf pine is one of many species that thrive when periodic low-intensity fires burn through stands.

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Grass stage