The Shortleaf Pine Initiative
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Launched in the spring of 2013, the Shortleaf Pine Initiative (SPI) is a collaborative, strategic and energetic response to the dramatic decline of shortleaf pine forests and associated habitats that once covered a vast area from eastern Texas to Florida and up the eastern seaboard to New Jersey. Over the last 30 years more than 50% of these forested acres have been lost with the most significant
You can see the difference between the three shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata) on the right and the one taller lobolly pine (Pinus taeda) on the left. Unfortunately, the two pines on the left will be lost to a bridge replacement/road curve adjustment/power line movement project. Hopefully the two shortleaf on the right which are in my Picnic Pocket Prairie will be spared. Shortleaf pine is a fire adapted species which occurs in the eastern United State from East Texas and the Ozarks to the East Coast and was historically the dominant pine species in Northeast Texas. Sadly due to harvesting, fire suppression, mesophication, and being replaced with loblolly pine, 50- 90% of the historic range of shortleaf pine is now gone. In 2002 NatureServe declared shortleaf pine-bluestem woodlands as globally imperiled. The fire dependent shortleaf and longleaf pine savanna ecosystems full of native grasses, wildflowers, and wildlife were very similar with the shorter needles, smaller cones, and more upright habit of shortleaf pines more adapted to snow and ice. For more information on shortleaf pine history and restoration visit:
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Huntsville, AL
35801
