Pinus elliottii and var densa

[Jimbean]

Anyone have any personal insight to the differences between the two?  I occasionally drive between Miami and up to Daytona, and from Melbourne to Orlando and notice subtle differences in slash pines.  I'm curious to see if others have made any observations. 

[Jimbean]

https://florida.plantatlas.usf.edu/Plant.aspx?id=3239

[Silas_Sancona]

In the " about " section on iNaturallist, there are mentions of what morphological features separate the two varieties:

https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/69985-Pinus-elliottii

[Jimbean]

I went ahead and made a detailed set of observations of the slash pines close to my area on inaturalist.org

[Jimbean]

3 hours ago, Jimbean said:

I went ahead and made a detailed set of observations of the slash pines close to my area on inaturalist.org

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/170539011

 

[bubba]

Dade County Pine (Pinus elliottii var. densa) was a major resource and building material throughout South Florida until the 1880’s but pockets still exist. This wood was an incredibly hard and termite resistant variety that was legendary. It certainly seems that it would make great sense to examine how the ordinary slash pine could be engineered to obtain the qualities of var. densa.

There is no question that the pines in South Florida are readily distinguishable from those in Central and North Florida. They trend towards a Serengeti appearance that can be quite appealing compared to the ordinary Slash pine experienced outside of South Florida.

[hbernstein]

I'm not sure if this is scientifically valid, but variety densa historically tended to grow on limestone, and seems to be much better suited to alkaline environments. when used in construction, termites avoided it.