Big Mushroom Swamp

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Permalink Reply by Swamp Hunter on June 5, 2012 at 10:05am

Mushrooms are cool but I dont know which ones are safe to eat.  Of interest here is "lighter wood".  The old Dade County slash pines grow nowhere else outside of South Florida and the Carribean.

 

The heartwood will never rot and it will even burn wet. I have some I use as fence posts. They are extremely hard and will last forever and can be found on BCNP pineheads.  Some of them are still standing.  Back in the day, they were collected and sold for fence posts. I have some on my property and I am very proud of them.

 

The stumps especially are full of turpentine resin. We used to dig up old resin soaked stumps with a large pry bar, wash the mud off and use one stump for an all night campfire. I used to hide the unburned stumps in the canal so I could use them on my next camping trip.  They will burn wet or in the rain and can be utilized in a survival situation which is good to know.  Commonly know as "lighter" or "lighterwood"  or "Dade County Pine."   Scrape an old lighter log with your pocket knife to see the beautiful orange color. I like the smell.

 

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Permalink Reply by Robert Sobczak on June 5, 2012 at 6:56pm

That's interesting ... especially that they will burn while raining.  

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Permalink Reply by Swamp Hunter on June 6, 2012 at 2:42pm

As you know, we have some heavy rains here in South Florida and I would imagine a heavy enough rain could extinguish a lighter stump fire depending on the size of the fire. . But the wood will burn when wet.

 

The heartwood or stumpwood is so hard and impregnated with turpentine, I dont think it can soak up any water. Stumps dont burn well caked with muck so I always wash them off first. We used to pull stumps out of the canal and immediately into the fire.

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