Pinus balfouriana
Pinus resinosa
foxtail pine
Norway pine, pin rouge, red pine
gray to salmon or cinnamon, platy or irregularly deep-fissured or with irregular blocky plates.
light red-brown, furrowed and cross-checked into irregularly rectangular, scaly plates.
contorted, ascending to descending;
twigs red-brown, aging gray to drab yellow-gray, glabrous or puberulent, young branches resembling long bottlebrushes because of persistent leaves.
spreading-ascending;
twigs moderately slender (to 1cm thick), orange- to red-brown, aging darker brown, rough.
ovoid-acuminate, red-brown, 0.8–1cm, resinous.
ovoid-acuminate, red-brown, to ca. 2cm, resinous;
scale margins fringed.
5 per fascicle, upcurved, persisting 10–30 years, 1.5–4cm × 1–1.4mm, mostly connivent, deep blue- to deep yellow-green, abaxial surface without median groove but usually with 2 subepidermal but evident resin bands, adaxial surfaces conspicuously whitened by stomates, margins mostly entire to blunt, apex broadly acute to acuminate;
sheath 0.5–1cm, soon forming rosette, shed early.
2 per fascicle, straight or slightly twisted, brittle, breaking cleanly when bent, deep yellow-green, all surfaces with narrow stomatal bands, margins serrulate, apex short-conic, acute;
sheath 1–2.5cm, base persistent.
ellipsoid, ca. 6–10mm, red.
ellipsoid, ca. 15mm, dark purple.
cones maturing in 2 years, shedding seeds and falling soon thereafter, spreading, symmetric, lance-cylindric with conic base before opening, broadly lance-ovoid or ovoid to cylindric or ovoid-cylindric when open, 6–9(–11)cm, purple, aging red-brown, nearly sessile;
apophyses much thickened, rounded, larger toward cone base;
umbo central, usually depressed;
prickle absent or weak, to 1mm, resin exudates amber.
cones maturing and opening in 2 years, spreading, symmetric, ovoid before opening, broadly ovoid to nearly globose when open, 3.5–6cm, light red-brown, nearly sessile;
apophyses slightly thickened, slightly raised, transversely low-keeled;
umbo central, centrally depressed, unarmed.
=24.
=24.
Pinus balfouriana
Pinus resinosa
Pinus balfouriana is the true "foxtail pine." In leaf character it is hardly, if at all, distinguishable from P. longaeva, but its strongly conic-based cones with distinctly shorter-prickled, sunken-centered umbos at once distinguish it from that species.
Plants shown to be genetically distinct from the type (differences in chemistry, form, foliage, cone orientation, and seeds) have been called Pinus balfouriana subsp. austrina R.Mastrogiuseppe & J.Mastrogiuseppe. As in several other species or species complexes in Pinus, however, there is a problem with a character gradient involving related taxa. The evidence presented by D.K. Bailey (1970) and later by R.J. Mastrogiuseppe and J.D. Mastrogiuseppe (1980) could as well be used to indicate that P. balfouriana (with its two infraspecific taxa) and P. longaeva represent a single species of three subspecies or three varieties. The more conservative view of Bailey is followed here.
Of conservation concern.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Pinus resinosa was once the most important timber pine in the Great Lakes region.
Norway pine (Pinus resinosa) is the state tree of Minnesota.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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