Here in the Carolina lowlands we are in the tail end of the annual coating of everything with pine pollen, mostly from lobolly pine (Pinus taeda, the scientific name being the source of the title pun, which beat out "Appallin' Pollen" for that dubious honor). As I write, oak pollen is still going strong . . .
A hideous yellow soup of pine pollen in a forest canal in Charleston County, S.C.
A "bathtub ring" of pollen marks a recent fall in water level of Grinnell Creek, N.C.
Loblolly pine is native to this region. Its natural habitat is on the fringes of and on high spots in swamps and other wet forested sites, where it is still easy to find--in fact the champion tree for the species is in a bottomland forest in the Congaree River system, South Carolina. We also have longleaf pine (Pinus palustris), pond pine (P. serotina), slash pine (P. elliottii), and probably a bit of shortleaf (P. echinata). But mostly, Pinus taeda is the leada.
A "champion tree" (largest known living specimen) loblolly pine in floodplain of the Congaree River system in Congaree National Park, S.C. (photo from Parcation.com).
Loblolly is pretty much everywhere in these parts. If you let a farm field or pasture lay fallow, in a few years some loblollies will have come in. Vast areas are in plantations owned by major timber companies (Weyerhauser and International Paper being predominant in the region) or by individual landowners. More vast areas, and many small forest and woodland patches, are in second (or third, or fourth) growth areas and in sites disturbed by storms, fires, and whatnot.
By the early 20th century, much of the U.S. south was heavily eroded land and degraded soils, made so by cut-out-and-get-out lumber industry practices and a lack of soil and water conservation practices on farmland. This was most obvious in the Piedmont but was also the case on the coastal plain. Soil conservation and reforestation programs began in the 1930s, and one tree that could and did grow on poor soils and degraded sites was loblolly pine. I still find it useful in that regard. In September, 2018 Hurricane Florence produced a big washout at my place. I filled it in (we're talking dump trucks and front loaders here, not shovels and wheelbarrows), but I couldn't get anything to grow on it, even after I asked for advice from the county extension agent. Finally (in late 2019) my son Damien and I went into the adjacent forest and dug up some loblolly seedlings and planted them on the fill. They took off, and by 2025 the stand needed thinning (actually by 2024, but I did not get around to it until 2025). Florence also eroded bluffs of the Neuse River estuary, exposing sediment and soil ranging from impermeable clay to sand. The loblollies colonized it, as shown below.
Erosion of the bluffs is ongoing, and accelerating due to climate change driving more frequent storms and sea-level rise. Thus, on many reaches the post-Florence pines have been undercut, particularly after a series of northeasters (meteorologists now like to call them coastal lows, but to folks here they are still northeasters or mullet blows).
Post-Florence pines undermined by a series of northeaster storms in late 2025.
A couple of side notes: I mentioned above that in the early 20th century much of the south was eroded, worn-out land that nobody much wanted by the 1930s. Many of the National Forests in the south were established in the 1930s by acquiring this land that no one would pay much for. This is the case for Francis Marion National Forest on the S.C. coastal plain, and Croatan N.F. on the N.C. coastal plain, established 19 days apart in 1936. Other examples: Bienville National Forest, Mississippi, 1936; Daniel Boone N.F., Kentucky, 1937; Jefferson N.F., Virginia, 1936; Sam Houston and Sabine National Forests, Texas, both 1936; Talladega N.F., Alabama, 1936. A few national forests in the south were established from 1907-1927; a few after the 1930s.
Highly resinous southern yellow pines such as Pinus taeda were not suitable for paper until some technological problems were solved. Carl Dahl invented the kraft process in 1879, but the big breakthrough was from Georgia chemist Charles Herty who found a way to make quality paper from loblolly and other southern yellow pines in 1932. Loblolly became not only a way to stem erosion and begin healing worn-out land, but a way to make money and help pull southern states out of the depression. Commercial silviculture operations can typically harvest trees for pulpwood every 25-30 years in the Carolinas (longer for sawtimber), but I've heard of rotations as low as 20 years.
I have no great love for the timber industry, or for the sticky-resin, cone-shedding, poor firewood loblolly pines (I've said on many occasions: a loblolly is better than no tree at all, but just barely). But I have to respect the ecological fitness of the unstoppable tree that came out of the swamps and took over much of the southern landscape--yellow pollen and all.
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