Pinus longaeva
Pinus glabra
bristlecone pine, Great Basin bristlecone pine, intermountain bristlecone pine
bottom white pine, cedar pine, spruce pine, Walter pine
red-brown, shallowly to deeply fissured with thick, scaly, irregular, blocky ridges.
gray, fissured and cross-checked into elongate, irregular, scaly plates, resin pockets absent, on upper sections of trunk ± smooth, gray, looking slick.
contorted, pendent;
twigs pale red-brown, aging gray to yellow-gray, puberulent, young branches resembling long bottlebrushes because of persistent leaves.
whorled, spreading to ascending;
twigs slender, purple-red to red-brown, occasionally glaucous, aging gray, smooth.
ovoid-acuminate, pale red-brown, ca. 1cm, resinous.
ovoid to ovoid-cylindric, red-brown, ca. 0.5–1cm, slightly resinous;
scale margins finely fringed.
mostly 5 per fascicle, upcurved, persisting 10–30 years, 1.5–3.5cm × 0.8–1.2mm, mostly connivent, deep yellow-green, with few resin splotches but often scurfy with pale scales, abaxial surface without median groove but with 2 subepidermal but evident resin bands, adaxial surfaces conspicuously whitened with stomates, margins entire or remotely and finely serrulate distally, apex bluntly acute to short-acuminate;
sheath ca. 1cm, soon forming rosette, shed early.
2 per fascicle, spreading to ascending, persisting 2–3 years, 4–8(–10)cm × 0.7–1.2mm, straight, slightly twisted, dark green, all surfaces with fine stomatal lines, margins finely serrulate, apex sharply conic;
sheath 0.5–1cm, base persistent.
cylindro-ellipsoid, 7–10mm, purple-red.
lance-cylindric, 10–15mm, purple-brown.
cones maturing in 2 years, shedding seeds and falling soon thereafter, spreading, symmetric, lance-cylindric with rounded base before opening, lance-cylindric to narrowly ovoid when open, 6–9.5cm, purple, aging red-brown, nearly sessile;
apophyses much thickened, sharply keeled;
umbo central, raised on low buttress, truncate to umbilicate, abruptly narrowed to slender but stiff, variable prickle 1–6mm, resin exudate pale.
cones maturing in 2 years, shedding seeds soon thereafter, semipersistent, spreading to recurved, nearly symmetric, lance-ovoid before opening, ovoid-cylindric when open, 3.5–7cm, red-brown, aging gray, nearly sessile or on stalks to 1cm, scales lacking contrasting border on adaxial surfaces (as in P. echinata);
apophyses but slightly thickened and raised;
umbo central, depressed, unarmed or with small, curved, weak, deciduous, short-incurved prickle.
=24.
Pinus longaeva
Pinus glabra
Pinus longaeva is considered by dendrochronologists to be the longest-lived tree. One tree was estimated to be 5000 years old.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Pinus glabra is more shade tolerant than most yellow pines. Although the trees grow large, the wood is not much valued. The species is similar in tree form to P. strobus. It resembles P. echinata in shoot and leaf but has less prickly cones and deeper green leaves.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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