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THURSDAY. JANUARY 7. 2021 PICKENS COUNTY PROGRESS PAGE 3A
Plants of the Southeast
Table mountain pine, Pinus pungens
Books&Writers
Photo/Alan Cressler
The cones of Table Mountain Pines are no doubt the most fearsome of all the eastern
pines
By John Nelson
University of
South Carolina
Prick not your finger as you
pluck it off...
Shakespeare, King
Henry IV, part 1
Well, good luck with that!
I'd recommend clippers if
you really need one of these
Table Mountain pine cones.
Strong, stout clippers.
(Wait...is it “pine cone” or
“pinecone”?)
The seed cones, shown
here from a mountain top in
northern Georgia, are
equipped with a prominent
spine on each scale, very
sharp and bent, and these
cones are no doubt the most
fearsome of all the eastern
pines.
The Table Mountain pine
cones take two years to ma
ture, that is, before they are
ready to release matured
seeds. The cones themselves
are massive and solid, tightly
attached to the stem, and they
frequently tend to be clus
tered in rings. These cones
remain on the tree many
years after they have ma
tured, with the seeds heli
coptering themselves out and
onto the ground, over the sea
sons. The cones are squatty
and somewhat asymmetric,
starting out shiny brown, but
weathering eventually to a
dull grey.
Being a pine, its leaves are
in the form of evergreen nee
dles, of course. And as with
all pines, the needles are clus
tered into individual bundles,
bound at the base by a thin,
papery sheath. With this
species, there are almost al
ways two needles in a bun
dle...rarely three...up to
about 5" long. These needles
are relatively short for a pine
and are commonly twisted a
bit. All pine species produce
pollen, which develops inside
"pollen" cones, not to be con
fused with these seed-pro
ducing ones. The pollen
cones of our mystery pine are
reddish purple, an inch or so
long, in clusters at branch
tips.
The Table mountain pine
is a true easterner, restricted
almost entirely to a fairly nar
row range of high ground
from central Pennsylvania
south through the Appalachi
ans, down to the mountain
ous parts of Georgia and
South Carolina. Additionally,
a few scattered populations
are more coastal, showing up
in the northern part of the
range, in New Jersey and
Delaware. The trees are usu
ally small, somewhat
crooked and stunted ("tortu
ous" is a good word in many
cases), although they occa
sionally get to nearly 100'
tall, or so. It is often a very
picturesque tree, with widely
spreading branches, growing
on craggy, rocky places in
high elevations, most often
from poor soils. The wood is
hard and brittle, and the
branches remain on the tree
for a long, long time.
This tree will form fairly
extensive stands in the north
ern and middle portions of its
range (especially in Virginia),
and it has had some value as
a commercially harvested
timber species. More com
monly, though, the trees
occur in small populations,
and are not valuable for much
other than pulp and firewood.
Wildlife species make con
siderable use of the seeds,
though, and since seeds may
fall from ripe cones at any
time of the year, this plant is
an important food source for
various critters.
©JohnNelson2020
[John Nelson is the retired
curator of the A. C. Moore
Herbarium at the University
of South Carolina, in the De
partment of Biological Sci
ences, Columbia SC 29208.
As a public service, the
Herbarium offers free plant
identifications. For more in
formation, visit www.herbar-
ium.org or email
johnbnelson@sc. rr. com.]
Project
Gutenberg
By A Georgia
Prison Inmate
Do you know about this
already? Well I just got in
troduced to it a few months
ago and am continually
blown away by all the
books offered from this
website. And I don’t even
have access to a tenth of all
that are available because
my choices are all public
domain titles for sale to
prisoners at .99 cents each,
downloadable through a
monitored kiosk onto a 7
inch Ipad kind of table that
is very limited in its func
tions.
Still, thousands upon
thousands of books dating
from 100-1960 AD fills my
Christmas wishlist for the
rest of this life.
For instance, the com
plete works of Churchill -
some 1.6 million words - for
.99 cents! Churchill isn’t the
best example, but the word
count is the point.
What is fun are all the
out of print, impossible to
find books from authors
such as Mark Twain,
Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson
Davis, H.P. Blavatsky,
Barnabas - you know St.
Paul’s buddy.
Subject matter is any
thing you can think of and
type into the search bar. Ad
mittedly, ‘car’ won’t get you
much past railroad cars, and
for some reason photos and
drawings have been omitted
from these electronic tran
scriptions, so don’t get
hopeful about books prom
ising photographic tours of
pre-1900s Europe. All you
find are transcriber descrip
tions of non-existant photos
of long lost landmarks.
But lets give a big hand
of thank you to an army of
volunteers who have tran
scribed these many, many
books into an electronic for
mat (some from foreign lan
guages) thus preserving for
the common folk literary
treasures (and yes, not so
treasurable).
If you’ve been cooped
up so long now that you’re
depressed by social media
and burnt out on reading the
same ol’ genre by the previ
ously favorite authors, well
then its time to read from
the dusty bin of yesteryear
Twains’ Diary of Eve’ for
old-fashioned quick read
humor or how about a 1910
collection of ‘cowboy songs
and other frontier ballads’
by an author my notes don’t
reveal.
There are so many great
little books that, though not
considered classic or rec
ommended reading by liter
ary professionals, offer first
hand account of daily life in
forgotten eras, of fictional
stories based on realities so
far removed from present
day to be original concepts
all over again.
Adjust the settings on
your ereading device and
dig in.
[Written by a Pickens
native from a Georgia
prison who does not want
any additional attention
while serving his sentence.]
The Pickens Progress
lobby will be closed on
Thursday and Friday of
this week due to a high
rate of COVID in the
community.
We will still be available by phone and email.
706-253-2457.
If you need something from our office, call
and arrange before you arrive.
8th Annual
Business
Directory
• High quality slick paper pamphlet
• Distributed as an insert in one issue of the
Pickens County Progress newspaper.
• Great quick reference tool to keep by your phone at
your work desk or in your car.
Color Ad
Only $ 130
Limited space
Advertising Deadline :
January 29, 2021
Contact Pickens County Progress
706-253-2457
We can take your business card in a digital format
or work with you to create one from scratch.
THE OLD
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with a creative chef-driven
menu, a full cocktail bar,
our signature mules, and
features beer and wine
from Georgia
(706) 253-3440
OLDMULEHOUSE.COM
2 North Main Street
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Open at I I a.m.Wed-Sun
closed Mon&Tues
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MOTOR VEHICLE
SERVICES
UNAVAILABLE
JAN 13-JAN 18
/
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services available in office.
NO online services or
kiosks available.
eorqia
This is a STATE WIDE update REQUIRED by the Department of Revenue.
During this time our office will have no access to the DRIVES system, thus we
WILL NOT be able to process ANY TYPE OF MOTOR VEHICLE
TRANSACTIONS OR INQUIRES. Our office will be fully functional to assist
customers with all Property Tax questions or transactions.
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