Pinus virginiana description

Range map, redrawn from (1).

Pinus virginiana Miller 1768

Common Names

Virginia pine (2), scrub pine, Jersey pine.

Taxonomic notes

Description

"Trees to 18 m; trunk to 50 cm diam., straight or contorted to erect or leaning; crown irregularly rounded or flattened. Bark gray-brown with irregular, scaly-plated ridges, on upper sections of trunk reddish, scaly. Branches spreading-ascending to spreading-descending; twigs slender, red- or purple-tinged, often glaucous, aging red-brown to gray, rough. Buds ovoid to cylindric, red-brown, 0.6-1cm, resinous or not resinous; scale margins white-fringed. Leaves 2 per fascicle, spreading or ascending, persisting 3-4 years, 2-8 cm × 1-1.5 mm, strongly twisted, deep to pale yellow-green, all surfaces with inconspicuous stomatal lines, margins serrulate, apex narrowly acute; sheath 0.4-1cm, base persistent. Pollen cones ellipsoid-cylindric, 10-20 mm, red-brown or yellow. Seed cones maturing in 2 years, shedding seeds soon thereafter, persisting to 5 years, symmetric, lance-ovoid or lanceoloid before opening, ovoid when open, 3-7(8) cm, dull red-brown, nearly sessile or on stalks to 1 cm, scales rigid, with strong purple-red or purple-brown border on adaxial surface distally; apophyses slightly thickened, slightly elongate; umbo central, low-pyramidal, with slender, stiff prickle. Seeds compressed-obovoid, oblique apically; body 4-7 mm, pale brown, mottled darker; wing narrow, to 20 mm. 2n=24" (2).

Range

USA: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, West Virgina, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware at 0-900 m on dry uplands, sterile sandy or shaly barrens, old fields, and lower mountains (2).

Big Tree

Diameter 83 cm, height 31 m, crown spread 15 m, located in Madisonville, KY; also, diameter 74 cm, height 35 m, crown spread 13 m, located in Jefferson County, AL (3).

Oldest

Dendrochronology

Ethnobotany

Observations

Remarks

The species is weedy and fire successional and often forms large stands (2).

Citations

(1) Burns, R.M. and B.H. Honkala. 1990. Silvics of North America, Vol. 1, Conifers. Washington DC: U.S.D.A. Forest Service Agriculture Handbook 654. http://willow.ncfes.umn.edu/silvics_manual/Table_of_contents.htm.

(2) Kral in Flora of North America online.

(3) American Forests. 1996. The 1996-1997 National Register of Big Trees. Washington, DC: American Forests.