In his last manuscript, "Wild Fruits," Henry David Thoreau wrote about the pitch pines near his home in Concord, Massachusetts – or, more specifically, he humorously wrote about the difficulty of trying to gather their pine cones.
In his last manuscript, "Wild Fruits," Henry David Thoreau wrote about the pitch pines near his home in Concord, Massachusetts – or, more specifically, he humorously wrote about the difficulty of trying to gather their pine cones.
"The cones are now all flowing with pitch and my hands are soon so covered with it that I cannot easily cast down my booty when I would, it sticks to my fingers so; and when I get down at last and have picked them up, I cannot touch my basket with such hands, but carry it on my arm, nor can I pick up my coat which I have taken off, unless with my teeth, or else I kick it up and catch it on my arm. Thus I go from tree to tree rubbing my hands from time to time in brooks and mud holes in the hope of finding something that will remove pitch, as grease does, but in vain. It is the stickiest work I ever did, yet I stick to it."
Pitch pines are so named because of their sticky sap that may discourage some predators, like the unlucky Thoreau.
With a grant from the National Park Service's National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, Nick Smith, an assistant professor in Texas Tech University's Department of Biological Sciences, and researcher Jeff Licht from the University of Massachusetts-Boston are beginning important research to determine whether the Concord pitch pines' defense mechanisms can fend off a far more ominous threat, the southern pine beetle.
Continue reading at Texas Tech University.
Image via Texas Tech University.
