Trees of Mystery

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One of the little known yet prevailing mysteries of our area is the story of the tree skeletons, those bony remains of long-leafed yellow pine that used to crop up in many parts of Indian River County. If you have ever traveled west on State Road 60 or north on I-95, you may have noticed some of these “lightered” trees rising out of a palmetto head or punctuating a stand of living pines.

“Lighter pine, light wood, heart pine, fat pine, fat lightered” are a few of the names given to these rock-hard, silver-skinned remains of long-leafed yellow pine that dwell throughout the southeastern United States. They are found on some of Florida’s better sandy soils and can be generally distinguished from common slash pines by their more erect and solitary growth.  Because of their durability and the fact that they may have stood for several lifetimes in a climate that is unkind to every sort of material, their existence takes on a dimension of mystery.

Read the entire article in the November 1998 issue

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