Washington Parish Natives: Longleaf Pines to Mountain Laurels

(April 2026)

In the past year, I’ve given several presentations about native plants in Washington Parish. These were fun presentations for me – and, I hope, for the audiences.

Plants that are native to a location are generally well adapted to the local climate, as it has existed in the past. People should be aware that just because a plant is well adapted to the general area doesn’t mean that it will thrive in all locations in the Parish. Home landscapes are not entirely natural settings, and we still need to consider factors like how sunny or shady a site is and how well or poorly drained it is.

It seems appropriate to start a discussion of Washington Parish natives with the longleaf pine (Pinus palustris), since it has played such an important role in the history of the Parish. While longleaf pine stands are not very common anymore, their presence played a large role in the selection of what is now Bogalusa for the establishment of the Great Southern Lumber Company in the early 1900s.

The native range of the longleaf pine extends from southeastern Virginia, over to eastern Texas and down into Florida. It’s largely a species of coastal plain soils, like those found in Washington Parish. Longleaf pines grow slowly and benefit from occasional fires that suppress the growth of vegetation around them. After longleaf pines were cut, forestland managers often planted back pines that grew more quickly, including loblolly (P. taeda) and slash pines (P. elliottii). These are also native to the area, as are shortleaf pine (P. echinata) and spruce pine (P. glabra).

Besides pines, bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) is another notable native conifer. It is Louisiana’s official state tree and has the impressive ability to live in both standing water and on upland sites.

Many people are familiar with southern magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora), which produces Louisiana’s state flower. Sweetbay magnolia (M. virginiana) has smaller flowers and tends to grow in wet areas. A less well-known native magnolia is bigleaf or cowcumber magnolia (M. macrophylla), which lives up to its name with leaves that are approximately 12 to 30 inches long. Unlike southern magnolia, bigleaf magnolia is deciduous, meaning that it loses its leaves in the winter.

Quite a few oak species – including water oak (Quercus nigra), willow oak (Q. phellos), southern red oak (Q. falcata), cherrybark oak (Q. pagoda), white oak (Q. alba), Darlington oak (Q. hemisphaerica), turkey oak (Q. laevis), blackjack oak (Q. marilandica), bluejack oak (Q. incana), and more – contribute to Washington Parish’s tree canopy.

Wooded areas contain more than trees. Two plants that we often see growing in the understory are wax myrtle (Myrica cerifera) and yaupon holly (Ilex vomitoria). Wax from the fruit of the fragrant-leafed wax myrtle is used to make bayberry candles.

Like other hollies, yaupon holly produces male and female flowers on separate plants, so some plants have red berries in the winter and some don’t. This is one of North America’s only native caffeine producing plants. I like to show people how to tell the difference between yaupon holly and Chinese privet (Ligustrum sinense), which is an aggressively invasive plant that I encourage people to get rid of when possible. The two plants look similar when neither have fruit on them, but yaupon holly has alternately arranged leaves while Chinese privet has oppositely arranged leaves.

While yaupon holly and wax myrtle are evergreen, a common deciduous understory shrub is American beautyberry (Callicarpa americana), which has pretty purple berries in the fall.

I discussed a couple of native azaleas – wild or Piedmont azalea (Rhododendron canescens) and swamp azalea (R. viscosum) – in a recent newspaper article. A closely related plant that people are often surprised to find out is native to Washington Parish is mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia). Washington Parish is one of the only places in Louisiana where this is found in the wild.

I’ve covered just a few trees and shrubs among the many plants native to Washington Parish. What are some of your favorites?

Next article: More Washington Parish Natives: Fruit-Producers, Vines, and Herbaceous Plants

Contact Mary Helen Ferguson.

pine tree with long needles against sky