This is the story of how just because this is the way it is, doesn't mean it's the way it will always be. Or, well, something like that.
There's this disease that conifers (cone producing plants (pine trees)) get called Witches Broom. Instead of these nice, space branches with needles, the tree will develop this bush looking branch. The branch is localized, so if you cut it off you've healed the tree of it's disease, but it will eventually kill the tree if left untreated.
These witches broom branches look, as the name suggests, like a broom. The branches do not produce seeds, and if they do, they're sterile. This means you couldn't grow a pine tree from these seeds.
Until, one day... someone did.
Like I said, usually these branches don't produce cones, and if they do they're sterile. But one day, in 1964, someone from NC States Forestry department found some cones in some branch of witches brew on a loblolly pine and said... 'well I guess I'll plant it.' And guess what grew? Not a regular loblolly pine, no, but a dwarf loblolly pine -- Pinus taeda 'Nana'. These are nothing like their counterparts, the dwarf loblolly pines are slow growing and produce these beautiful, thick branches of foliage, just like the witches brew!
Now, the department got 26 of these bad boys to grow. Each of them are located in NC State's JC Arboretum. That being said, the Horticulture program was unable to get them to grow reliably, so this remains the only collection of dwarf loblolly pines in the world, and they will likely never be introduced to the market unless someone can figure out a way to propagate them more reliably.
This begs a few questions -- at least, it begged a few questions from me. The first one, is why not just plant more? Well, like witches brew typically produces sterile cones, so do these dwarf loblolly pines. It doesn't matter how many of their seeds you plant, they'll never grow. This means that the dwarf loblolly pine does not 'Come True From Seed'. This term is used, as you can guess, when a plants seed yields no results. Plant coming true from seed also is one of the differences between a botanical variety and a cultivar. Cultivars are potential varieties of plants that do not come true from seed, and instead must be propagated vegetatively by humans in order to get more of them.
This dwarf loblolly pine is a cultivar, then, but here's a second question. If you can propagate it, then why can't it be reproduced and introduced into the market? Well, in a group of 100 propagated branches, only 2 of them actually rooted and grew. Sheesh, bad odds. If only 2% of these branches rooted and grew, then what does that offer nurseries? Just about... nothing. They would waste money, time, and space attempting to fruitlessly propagate these plants. Of course, there are special nurseries dedicated to propagating hard to propagate plants, but they are few and far in-between -- and due to all their hard work, it'd be insanely expensive just to get your hands on one of these guys! So you can see the problem with the dwarf loblolly pines.
But you've gotta admit, the dwarf loblolly pines are handsome, thick trees. If you ever get the chance, you should definitely go check them out at the JC Arboretum.
So even though these plants do not come true from seed, and definitely don't propagate without a fight, they were a fascinating discovery to the horticulture world, who had previously known witches broom as nothing more than a disease. Granted, it still is, and it probably isn't worth your time to search every pine tree you see for the puffy branch, but definitely food for thought. Makes you wonder where else new species of plants are hiding.
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