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After 400 years of hurt, longleaf pines get help HOW TO HELP
Caroline biologist works to bolster Virginia's native but threatened longleaf pine.Date published: 7/21/2008 The first Europeans to come to Virginia found seemingly infinite stands of longleaf pines. The tall pines with flowing, brushy needles grew over 1.5 million acres of the sandy southeastern part of the state. Turpentine-bearing resin flowed through their trunks, and to get it all someone had to do was make a deep notch and drain it out. But instead of making just one notch per tree, turpentine collectors made four. "Boxing" killed the trees. So did burning them to make pitch, a black goo used to waterproof ships. Most of Virginia's longleaf pines were gone by the mid-19th century, and logging and fire suppression throughout the 20th century nearly finished off the species in the state. As Virginia longleaf pines disappeared, foresters planted ecologically less-fit Louisiana longleaf in their place, or abandoned longleaf altogether in favor of faster-growing loblolly. Sheridan directs the Meadowview Biological Research Station in Caroline, a private nonprofit organization chiefly concerned with preserving carnivorous yellow and purple pitcher plants. Taking up the longleaf cause was a logical extension of that work. Longleaf pines and pitcher plants like similar habitats, with a balance of moisture, fire, sunlight and climate factors. To Sheridan, restoring longleaf pines is a simple matter of ethics. "For us to have wiped out an organism in the state and then supplanted it with a nonnative genus--that's just wrong," he said. It's up to this generation to begin reversing 400 years of longleaf destruction, Sheridan believes. Using Meadowview seedlings and some raised by King George County schoolchildren, Sheridan worked with the Virginia Department of Transportation in the late 1990s to plant longleaf in highway rights of way. But Sheridan sought a larger, more protected setting for a concentrated longleaf restoration effort. With a bank loan that's being repaid with donated funds, Meadowview purchased 100 acres in Sussex County in 2004 and established the private Joseph Pines Preserve. There, in the heart of the historic range of Virginia's longleaf, the group has planted several acres of seedlings. Some now tower over Sheridan's head. Prescribed burns replicate fires historically caused by lightning and purposely set by American Indians. Longleaf not only withstands fire, it depends on it to keep down competition from faster-growing species. Joseph Pines' mission also includes capturing the entire Virginia longleaf pine genome by grafting, fascicle rooting or seed propagation. That's possible because such a small number of indigenous trees still remain. Besides the Joseph Pines Preserve, the publicly owned Blackwater Ecological Preserve in Isle of Wight County also has a protected population of longleaf pines. That's important for 18 plant species threatened by devastation of the longleaf ecosystem, including toothache grass, bog buttons and shortleaf sneezewood. Animal species associated with the ecosystem include the threatened red-cockaded woodpecker. Virginia's longleaf pines will never be as plentiful and self-sustaining as they were when Europeans first arrived, Sheridan said, but they can continue to exist with help. "We're wedded to this permanently," he said. "Otherwise we're going to lose this stuff." Laura Moyer: 540/374-5417
Date published: 7/21/2008
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