Shortleaf Pine is native from New Jersey and spots in southern Pennsylvania down through most of Georgia and northwest Florida to a little into east Texas to southern Illinois back to NJ growing in upland areas. It is a hard pine with bright green, slender, flexible needles about 3 to 5 inches long mostly in bundles of 2, sometimes 3. The cones are 1.5 to 2.5 inches long and each scale is tipped with a prickle. The bark is reddish brown and scaly on the surface and with irregular, large, blocky plates and handsome. It forms a deep taproot or deep lateral roots and is therefore sort of difficult to transplant. It is fast growing of 2 or more feet/year. Wild trees usually grow about 80 to 100 feet high with trunks 2 to 3 feet in diameter and a sort of narrow crown; and landscape trees grow more like 50 to 60 feet high. It favors dry, upland, acidic soils. It is an important timber tree in the South. The oldest tree known is in Tennessee and is about 324 years old, and the tallest in the same state Is about 140 feet high. I saw some being sold in 3 to 5 gallon containers at Redbud Native Plant Nursery in Media in southeast Pennsylvania in 2017 & 2018. If I had room in my yard, I would have bought one to three. Another lovely tall, majestic southern pine. It has been know to hybridize with Loblolly Pine and Pitch Pine. It is a host plant for the Elfin Butterfly.

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