Longleaf, Far as the Eye Can See: A New Vision of North America's Richest Forest by Bill Finch et al. (review)

Many of us know the tragic story of the longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) tree in the Southeast United States. Simply put, longleaf was ubiquitous and covered approximately 92 million acres (37 million hectares) at the height of its greatest extent. Then, not only did we start suppressing wildfires needed for the persistence of longleaf forests, but we also cut them all down (well, almost all of them). Yet, however tragic the story is of how we annihilated North America's richest and largest forest ecosystem, the interest in restoring longleaf has seen resurgence in recent decades. With a forward by E. O. Wilson and an epilogue by Rhett Johnson, director of the Longleaf Alliance, the book Longleaf, Far as the Eye Can See: A New Vision of North America's Richest Forest begs to be read. In their book, Bill Finch and coauthors offer a powerful homage to longleaf as a species, and explore how this tree was, and still is, entrenched in the culture of the Southeast.

For me, this book hits close to home. I grew up in central Florida, near the southern range limit of longleaf 's geographic distribution (see Little 1971), and spent most my time childhood playing in longleaf forest. Many times have I heard, and read, the sad story of the catastrophic loss of longleaf. However, the authors do not present longleaf's history in an overbearingly negative light. Rather, they focus on the recent surge, led by the Longleaf Alliance, in restoring (e.g., increased burning and replanting) the longleaf forest. This positive focus is a fresh, and much more enjoyable, approach to the subject.

Longleaf, Far as the Eye Can See eloquently flows between five sections. In section one, the authors establish the legend of the longleaf pine as the "alpha tree" of what once was North America's largest forest ecosystem. Finch et al. describe how one tree species had "a way of turning poverty into wealth . . . sickness into health" (p 26). During much of the nineteenth century, the nutrient-poor, sandy soils of the Gulf Coastal Plain were the least likely place for a person to make his/her fortune in the agricultural haven of the South. While most people were focused on working the rich soils near the coastal plain rivers, the exceedingly poor residents, known as "Tar Heels" and "sand tackies," that inhabited the sandy longleaf hill country were left in the depths of despair. Yet, at the turn of the twentieth century, Finch et al. explain how a phenomenon spread throughout the Piney Wood communities of the South and how some of these disparaged communities transformed into "wealthy enclaves, graced with large, extravagant homes . . . and world-class golf courses" (p 27). Complete with historical photographs, this section is thick with intriguing accounts of how closely entwined longleaf was with the cultural activities of the lower South.

Section two is a complete homage to the longleaf tree. This section is one of my favorites, as the authors weave their delivery with "Tree 249-3," a story written by Larry Hedrick that appeared in a 1995 Longleaf Alliance newsletter. The authors describe the phenology, physiology, and identification of longleaf, and I must admit there were times when reading this section that I thought I was reading the Peterson Field Guide to Eastern Trees, but in much more detail. What makes this section special is the back-and-forth inclusion of the "Tree 249-3" story, before which I had not read. At the risk of spoiling the story, I will only attest this: this section will create a burning desire within even the slightest nature enthusiast to visit the site of Tree...