South Florida Slash Pine
Plant Talk by Lyn Groves
After working in the garden, I enjoy sitting on a bench and looking out over the pond. There is a scraggly looking pine tree, Pinus Elliotti var Densa growing at the edge of the waterline and on a branch often stands an Anhinga, who lets me know of his great displeasure at my presence. Our pine tree is not a beauty yet, but this gymnosperm has both an interesting adaptation to the frequent fires often caused by lightning strikes and a link to a dark period of Florida history.
Our native Slash Pine, its common name, has two varieties here in Florida, the Slash Pine and the South Florida Slash Pine, the one we have here in IRC. Being gymnosperms these trees do not have flowers or fruit but reproduce by cones. They are monoecious meaning each tree has male cones with pollen and female cones with winged seeds that blow in the wind. These winged seeds, called samaras or helicopters, are similar to the ones maple trees produce. Given the right conditions, germination can be in two weeks. But, then it is slow growing for a while. A growth bud with little short branches of dense needles will appear just above the ground. This is called its grass stage as the plant looks like a tuft of grass. During this grass stage, which can last from two to ten years, a deep tap root develops which provides food and stabilizes the plant. When lightning causes a fire during its grass stage, the growth bud is protected by the needles and their fascicles. The needles will quickly regrow if burned. The tap root remains safely underground. After this grass stage, the south Florida slash pine grows tall and straight, up to 4 feet a year, with lower branches that will eventually die and self-shed. The mature bark that develops is multi-layered, with an outer bark of flaky reddish-brown plates that will burn with a fire but leave another bark underneath to survive. Frequent fires are part of the slash pine and also longleaf pine’s ecosystem here in southern Florida. Our slash pine is fire resistant and depends on frequent fires to clear their area of hardwood trees, which would eventually take over our pine lands if not cleared by fire.
In the late 1800s turpentine camps began to spring up in the south, tapping the gum from Longleaf Pines and Slash Pine trees. Turpentine and rosin produced in these camps were used to seal wooden ships and waterproof rigging among other uses. A V-shaped slash (where the common name slash pine derives) was cut into the pine tree and then workers inserted metal gutters along the slash into the tree’s cambium so that when the gum oozed to the surface, it flowed down the metal gutter into an attached clay cup. The gum was then distilled by cooking it down in big copper kettles to produce turpentine and rosin.
Hundreds of turpentine camps existed in north Florida covering tens of thousands of acres. What made these camps profitable, besides a desired product, was cheap labor. Most workers were poorly paid African-Americans or non-paid convicts leased from local or state jails.
The convict leasing system began in Florida in 1877 when the governor signed a law allowing private companies to lease prisoners. The owners of the camps assumed all care and discipline of the convicts. This leasing system was utilized mostly by turpentine camps, lumber yards, phosphate mines, and railroad construction, and were essentially slavery. By 1900 the majority of Florida’s state convicts were leased, a boon for the state treasury. The work in the turpentine camps was grueling and dangerous, living conditions primitive, and food poor and inadequate. Corporal punishment was frequent and cruel. Workers were dependent on company stores with inflated prices as the locations of these camps were remote, keeping those who were not convicts in debt.
Martin Tabert wanted to see the world, he was a 22 year old man from a farm in North Dakota who traveled across the country to Florida. He ran out of money in Florida and was caught riding on a train without a ticket. Martin was convicted of vagrancy and sent to a camp 60 miles south of Tallahassee. His parents sent the county sheriff the $50.00 fine plus money for a ticket back home, but the money was returned to them. At the camp, Martin Tabert was beaten to death by an overseer, known as the whipping boss. Upon learning of their son’s death by a man who witnessed the beating, his parents asked the attorney general of North Dakota to investigate. It took his investigation, the governor of North Dakota, two New York lawyers and a reporter for the New York World to bring about such public revulsion that the Florida legislature agreed to conduct an investigation into Martin’s death. In 1923 all convict leasing was ended and also corporal punishment of convicted inmates in Florida prisons.
But our little South Florida slash pine knows nothing of history. Birds love to perch on its branches, as anhingas, boat-tailed grackles, mockingbirds, and once an American Bittern.
I invite you to go to the garden, find our South Florida slash pine, and enjoy a few peaceful moments sitting on a bench overlooking our pond.