Table mountain pine
Table Mountain pine Pinus pungens | |
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Cultivated specimen Morton Arboretum acc. 255-86-3 | |
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Plantae |
Clade: | Tracheophytes |
Division: | Pinophyta |
Class: | Pinopsida |
Order: | Pinales |
Family: | Pinaceae |
Genus: | Pinus |
Subgenus: | P. subg. Pinus |
Section: | P. sect. Trifoliae |
Subsection: | P. subsect. Australes |
Species: | P. pungens
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Binomial name | |
Pinus pungens | |
Natural range |
Table Mountain pine,[2] Pinus pungens, also called hickory pine, prickly pine,[2] or mountain pine,[3] is a small pine native to the Appalachian Mountains in the United States.
Description[]
Pinus pungens is a tree of modest size (6–12 m), and has a rounded, irregular shape. The needles are in bundles of two, occasionally three, yellow-green to mid green, fairly stout, and 4–7 cm long. The pollen is released early compared to other pines in the area which minimizes hybridization. The cones are very short-stalked (almost sessile), ovoid, pale pinkish to yellowish buff, and 4–9 cm long; each scale bears a stout, sharp spine 4–10 mm long. Sapling trees can bear cones in a little as 5 years.
Buds ovoid to cylindric, red-brown, 0.6-0.9 cm, resinous.[4]
P. pungens prefers dry conditions and is mostly found on rocky slopes, favouring higher elevations, from 300–1760 m altitude. It commonly grows as single scattered trees or small groves, not in large forests like most other pines, and needs periodic disturbances for seedling establishment.
In culture[]
Pinus pungens is the Lonesome Pine of the 1908 novel The Trail of the Lonesome Pine by John Fox, and popularised in the Laurel and Hardy film Way out West:
- On the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia
- On the Trail of the Lonesome Pine
Several "Lonesome Pine" hiking trails have been waymarked in the Blue Ridge Mountains and elsewhere in the Appalachians.
References[]
- ^ Farjon, A. (2013). "Pinus pungens". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2013: e.T42406A2977840. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2013-1.RLTS.T42406A2977840.en.
- ^ Jump up to: a b "Pinus pungens". Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN). Agricultural Research Service (ARS), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Retrieved 4 January 2018.
- ^ Moore, Gerry; Kershner, Bruce; Craig Tufts; Daniel Mathews; Gil Nelson; Spellenberg, Richard; Thieret, John W.; Terry Purinton; Block, Andrew (2008). National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to Trees of North America. New York: Sterling. p. 71. ISBN 978-1-4027-3875-3.
- ^ "Pinus pungens (Table Mountain pine) description - The Gymnosperm Database". www.conifers.org. Retrieved 2019-06-11.
- Farjon, A. & Frankis, M. P. (2002). Pinus pungens. Curtis's Botanical Magazine 19: 97-103.
External links[]
- Flora of North America: Pinus pungens info and P. pungens Range Map
- Pinus pungens images at bioimages.vanderbilt.edu
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pinus pungens. |
- IUCN Red List least concern species
- Pinus
- Pinus taxa by common names
- Endemic flora of the United States
- Flora of the Appalachian Mountains
- Trees of the Northeastern United States
- Trees of the Southeastern United States
- Least concern flora of the United States