My other guess is Virginia Pine - P. virginiana...

Look at a branch and see how the needles are arranged in a bundle. How many needles in a bundle? Look at several. How long are the needles? Both pieces of information will be helpful to you. For example:

Loblolly - 3 needles per bundle, length about 6-9 inches
Virginia pine - 2 needles per bundle, about 2-3 inches long, slight wavy appearance
Shortleaf pine - 2 needles per bundle (sometimes 3), about 3-5 inches long, straight needles

Those are the 3 common ones near me.

My guess is Virginia as well, without a photo. Photos help :)

VA pine grows from the eastern shore to the mnts.. Loblollys (& a few Shortleafs) are restricted to the eastern shore -- unless planted elsewhere. Table mnt pine is restricted to the mountains.

Plant a VA pine (or Table mnt pine) in a moist, good loam w/little competition, & it'll grow almost as tall as any canopy tree. Wates Golden VA pine here on the lawn is growing about as fast as E white pine.

This post was edited by beng on Thu, May 30, 13 at 9:49

I looked more closely at one - until now had never seen them up close, just while driving.

Definitely VA Pine. I've been all over the Eastern Shore, the 95 corridor, and Western MD & I do see them everywhere.

Loblollys I know & they're, to me, quite different looking.

One thing that's interesting about VA pine is that, because it colonizes so easily & commonly, it has become one of the most utilized wood-pulp sources in west MD.

Another distinction for roadside driving is the size of the cones and the fact that the Va pine and shortleaf pine tend to keep their cones until the branch falls off. Loblolly of course drops it's cones.