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Jack pine, pin gris, scrub pine

Habit Trees to 27m; trunk to 0.6m diam., straight to crooked; crown becoming irregularly rounded or spreading and flattened.
Bark

orange- to red-brown, scaly.

Branches

descending to spreading-ascending, poorly self-pruning;

twigs slender, orange-red to red-brown, aging gray-brown, rough.

Buds

ovoid, red-brown, 0.5–1cm, resinous;

scale margins nearly entire.

Leaves

2 per fascicle, spreading or ascending, persisting 2–3 years, 2–5cm × 1–1.5(–2)mm, twisted, yellow-green, all surfaces with fine stomatal lines, margins finely serrulate, apex acute to short-subulate;

sheath 0.3–0.6cm, semipersistent.

Pollen cones

cylindric, 10–15mm, yellow to orange-brown.

Seed(s)

cones maturing in 2 years, shedding seeds soon thereafter or often long-serotinous and shedding seeds only through age or fire, upcurved, asymmetric, lanceoloid before opening, ovoid when open, 3–5.5cm, tan to light brown or greenish yellow, slick, nearly sessile or short-stalked, most apophyses depressed but increasingly mammillate toward outer cone base;

umbo central, depressed, small, sunken centrally, unarmed or with a small, reflexed apiculus.

2n

=24.

Pinus banksiana

Habitat Fire successional in boreal forests, tundra transition, dry flats, and hills, sandy soils
Elevation 0–800m (0–2600ft)
Distribution
from FNA
IL; IN; ME; MI; MN; NH; NY; PA; VT; WI; AB; BC; MB; NB; NS; NT; ON; PE; QC; SK
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[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Pinus banksiana reaches its largest size and best form in Canada. In western Alberta and in northeastern British Columbia, it is sympatric with P. contorta and forms hybrid swarms with that species.

Jack pine (Pinus banksiana) is the territorial tree of the Northwest Territories.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Source FNA vol. 2.
Parent taxa Pinaceae > Pinus
Sibling taxa
P. albicaulis, P. aristata, P. attenuata, P. balfouriana, P. cembroides, P. clausa, P. contorta, P. coulteri, P. echinata, P. edulis, P. elliottii, P. engelmannii, P. flexilis, P. glabra, P. jeffreyi, P. lambertiana, P. leiophylla, P. longaeva, P. monophylla, P. monticola, P. muricata, P. palustris, P. ponderosa, P. pungens, P. quadrifolia, P. radiata, P. resinosa, P. rigida, P. sabiniana, P. serotina, P. strobiformis, P. strobus, P. sylvestris, P. taeda, P. torreyana, P. virginiana, P. washoensis
Synonyms P. divaricata, P. sylvestris var. divaricata
Name authority Lambert: Descr. Pinus 1: 7, plate 3. (1803)
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