Pinus longaeva
Pinus serotina
bristlecone pine, Great Basin bristlecone pine, intermountain bristlecone pine
marsh pine, pocosin pine, pond pine
red-brown, shallowly to deeply fissured with thick, scaly, irregular, blocky ridges.
red-brown, irregularly furrowed and cross-checked into rectangular, flat, scaly plates.
contorted, pendent;
twigs pale red-brown, aging gray to yellow-gray, puberulent, young branches resembling long bottlebrushes because of persistent leaves.
spreading to ascending;
twigs stout, orange- to yellow-orange, frequently glaucous, aging darker.
ovoid-acuminate, pale red-brown, ca. 1cm, resinous.
ovoid to narrowly ovoid, red-brown, 1–1.5(–2)cm, resinous.
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.
3 per fascicle (to 5 in adventitious or disturbed growth), spreading to ascending, persisting 2–3 years, (12–)15–20(–21)cm × 1.3–1.5(–2)mm, slightly twisted, tufted at twig tips, straight, yellow-green, all surfaces with fine stomatal lines, margins serrulate, apex acuminate;
sheath 1–2cm, base persistent.
cylindro-ellipsoid, 7–10mm, purple-red.
cylindric, to 30mm, yellow-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, in some populations beginning to shed seeds then but more often variably serotinous, long-persistent, often whorled, symmetric, ovoid to lanceoloid before opening, broadly ovoid to nearly globose when open, 5–8cm, pale red-brown to creamy brown, sessile or on stalks to 1cm, scales with dark red-brown border on adaxial surface distally;
apophyses slightly thickened, low, rhombic, low cross-keeled;
umbo central, low-conic, with short, weak prickle, sometimes unarmed.
=24.
Pinus longaeva
Pinus serotina
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 serotina is fire successional and sprouts adventitiously after crown fires. It is part of a distinct forest type including Taxodium distichum (Linnaeus) Richard, Nyssa biflora Walter, Magnolia virginiana Linnaeus, Persea sp., and Ilex sp. Of good form when protected from fire, P. serotina then much resembles P. taeda, with which it hybridizes naturally. It is of increasing importance as pulpwood.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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