Princess Pine?

[John G]

Reading Pitdog's recent snare thread, where he uses cedar root for cordage, reminded me of Princess Pine, a small pine plant with an extensive root system. My old scoutmaster showed us how to pull up the long roots and use them for cordage.

Does anyone know more about Princess Pine? Its actual name, etc? Thanks in advance!

 

[dboles]

Howdy John
Wonder if he meant Prince's Pine-Chimaphila umbellata
Apostrope must have messed you up lol
Its an evergreen plant here in the west important winter deer food. Found all across the continent
Im thinking if you google that latin name then click on images you may see the plant I know. Havent had luck in copying and pasting off those image pages
If it does produce long roots it will be a good thing to know.Usually use conifer roots of all types for binding (or use withes)
Dan'l

 

[the lone gunman]

Back in the late 60s/early 70s whenever one of our local Big Carbon Factorys went on strike, Some of the guys would go pick Princess Pine and sell it for cash. At one time there was a good market for it making Christmas Decorations. Those guys would pick all day and fill the back of a pickup truck with garbage bags full of the stuff.
As you mentioned it would make good cordage and at least around my area there sure is plenty of it. Here is a link ;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycopodium_clavatum
Note that it is now endangered in many areas.

 

[John G]

Dan: I wouldn't be surprised if my memory has changed "prince's" to "princess!" I'm sure not a boy scout anymore. I suppose that's the confusion that comes with using common names instead of Latin.

Lone Gunman: That link looks about right. Thanks! The endagered status is too bad, we used to use it to tie up lean-tos on our boy scout survival camps. Strong stuff.

 

[Sylvan]

Princess Pine is also used for the plant with the scientific name of Lycopodium obscurum. It commonly grows in northeast hardwoods. I think many people use Princess pine to refer the generally similar club mosses in the Lycopodium genus.

 

[elkins45]

That's not what we called Princess Pine in Eastern Kentucky. We used to pick it for my grandmother to make Christmas wreaths with. This stuff had circular fronds and was very low to the ground.