When Kate Livingston first imagined Florida’s forests as a teenager in New York, she says, “I thought they were all palm trees!” But during a forest ecology course in college, she learned about a different species indicative to the Sunshine State and the greater Southeast: longleaf pine. What caught her interest was not only the realization that conifers grow in this region, but also the unique life cycle of these fire-dependent forests, which includes an unusual, grass-like seedling phase.  

Now, as the state lands silviculture supervisor for the Florida Forest Service, Livingston and her colleagues are working with American Forests to protect these special trees and the ecosystems that surround them.  

While longleaf pine forests once covered 90 million acres across the Southeast — from southern Virginia to Louisiana and eastern Texas — years of extensive logging after European colonists arrived, followed by clearing more trees to make way for development and putting out the fires these trees need to grow, shrunk the vast forests to 3% of their original range.  

Restoring these forests is critical because they provide both climate resilience and shelter for an incredible variety of wildlife, says Mitzy Sosa, American Forests’ senior manager of reforestation partnerships. These drought-tolerant and fire-resistant trees are known for their ability to efficiently capture and store carbon over long periods of time, making them important species as climate change intensifies.  

Longleaf pine forests are also home to several hundred species of birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians, as well as more than 900 diverse plant species. Many of these species are found only in the Southeast, including rare birds like the endangered red cockaded woodpecker and the regionally threatened gopher tortoise. 

The work with the Florida Forest Service, which includes a new longleaf planting project in Blackwater River State Forest, is part of American Forests’ long-term commitment to restoring this species and their forests. Since 1992, American Forests and its partners — which also includes the USDA Forest Service and the Longleaf Alliance — have been planting and maintaining longleaf forests in states across the Southeast.   

A Fire-Dependent Life Cycle 

On a visit to a longleaf pine forest, surrounded by towering trees, you might wonder where the new seedlings are. “When you see a young longleaf pine, it looks like a tuft of grass poking out of the ground,” says Livingston. “You wouldn’t even recognize it as a tree unless you knew what you were looking for.” In this grass stage, the young longleaf pine is focusing all of its energy on its root system, which will eventually produce a 12-foot-long taproot to support the towering, full-grown tree. After five years or so, the hidden longleaf begins to rocket upward into a recognizable tree.  

Peer up to see the namesake needles of a mature longleaf pine tree, and you’ll be looking a hundred or more feet overhead. The branches of the longleaf pine are short and stubby, sitting atop a long, bare trunk with scaly bark.  

But to really understand where this tree gets its name, you’ll want to look down. Around your feet, fallen longleaf pine needles form a soft layer on the forest floor. Needles can grow up to 18 inches long, stretching all the way across a standard bed pillow. Indigenous people were the first to use longleaf pine needles to make baskets. Today, the pliable needles, called pine straw, are also used for mulch. 

These needles are also essential to this forest’s fire-dependent ecosystem. Longleaf pine grow in a natural partnership with wiregrass, a low-lying native grass that produces seeds after a fire. During a natural, low-intensity fire, flammable longleaf pine needles and wiregrass help the fire spread through the understory, clearing out competing hardwood trees and scrub brush, and providing room for new longleaf pine to grow.  

“Fire is so important in maintaining the health of these ecosystems that when you exclude fire, it is damaging and degrading to the forest,” Livingston says.  

Sheltering Unique Species 

Fire is also essential to many of the animal species that call the longleaf forest home. One of the most charming residents of this ecosystem, the gopher tortoise, uses its shovel-like front legs to dig enormous underground burrows that it can retreat to in the event of a fire.  

The burrows, which can be 40 feet long and 10 feet deep, “are really important to almost every single other species, whether it’s a snake or another creature in the forest,” says Sosa.  

In a recent study, researchers found that five different snake species preferred areas of the forest that had burned within the last three years, compared to areas with less frequent fires. 

Bringing Back the Longleaf Pine 

Restoring these forests, and their natural fire regimes, has been a priority for American Forests since the organization’s first longleaf pine projects, which included planting 22,000 seedlings in Mississippi to restore habitat for the gopher tortoise and other species. Since then, American Forests has teamed up with federal and state agencies, as well as local conservation groups, to help plant more than 6.9 million longleaf pine seedlings across seven Southeastern states.  

In Florida, American Forests worked with the Florida Forest Service in 2023 to fund the planting of 104 acres at Etoniah Creek State Forest. This forest is part of a critical wildlife corridor that allows many species to have extended ranges through this region, which has a combination of hardwood forests, swamps, and creek and lakeside habitat. 

In this particular stand, the Florida Forest Service prepared the site by removing competing trees and plants that could impede longleaf growth, then burned the site to mimic the way fire historically cleared longleaf forests prior to planting new seedlings. Once the seedlings were in the ground, state workers used, and will continue to use, fire at this site to maintain the health of the longleaf forest. 

This planting is part of a total of 133,000 longleaf pine that have been planted at Etoniah Creek with the help of a number of partners, including American Forests. “We’re just incredibly grateful for the support American Forests gives us and the state reforestation program,” says Livingston. 

During the 2024 planting season, American Forests and the Florida Forest Service worked together to plant 565 acres of longleaf forests on another unique site, Blackwater River State Forest in the Florida panhandle. This state forest, and the forests in neighboring Eglin Air Force Base and Alabama’s Conecuh National Forest, together are home to one of the largest continuous longleaf pine ecosystems in the country. By the end of 2025, American Forests will have planted a total of 400,000 new longleaf seedlings to strengthen this forest and provide more connected habitat for the species that live in this region. 

While these new longleaf seedlings will take decades to grow into lanky adults, the partners have still been able to celebrate the fruits of past efforts. In 1992, American Forests worked on one of its earliest longleaf pine projects in Blackwater River State Forest. “Now, those trees are fully grown trees. It looks like a wonderful forest,” Sosa says. “And now, more than three decades later, we’re going to have the ability to go in and support more acres this year.” 

Learn more about American Forests’ forest restoration work and donate to support reforestation of longleaf pine in the Southeast and other threatened forests and species.