The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links

hickory pine, mountain pine, prickley pine, table mountain pine

Habit Trees to 12m; trunk to 0.6m diam., straight to crooked, erect to leaning, poorly self-pruning; crown irregularly rounded or flattened.
Bark

red- to gray-brown, irregularly checked into scaly plates.

Branches

horizontally spreading;

twigs slender, orange- to yellow-brown, aging darker brown, rough.

Buds

ovoid to cylindric, red-brown, 0.6–0.9cm, resinous.

Leaves

2(–3) per fascicle, spreading or ascending, persisting 3 years, 3–6(–8)cm × 1–1.5mm, twisted, deep yellow-green, all surfaces with fine stomatal lines, margins harshly serrulate, apex acute to short-acuminate;

sheath 0.5–1cm, base persistent.

Pollen cones

ellipsoid, ca. 15mm, yellow.

Seed(s)

cones maturing in 2 years, variably serotinous, mostly whorled, downcurved, asymmetric, ovoid before opening, broadly ovoid when open, (4–)6–10cm, gray- to pale red-brown, nearly sessile or on stalks to 1cm;

apophyses thickened, diamond-shaped, strongly keeled, elongate, mammillate at cone base abaxially;

umbo central, a stout, curved, sharp claw.

2n

=24.

Pinus pungens

Habitat Dry, mostly sandy or shaly uplands, Appalachians and associated Piedmont
Elevation 500–1350m (1600–4400ft)
Distribution
from FNA
DE; GA; MD; NC; NJ; PA; SC; TN; VA; WV
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Pinus pungens is a scrub pine and is too small and knotty to be much utilized except for pulpwood and firewood. Its common name refers to a general type of landform, not to a specific, named mountain.

(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. banksiana, 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. 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
Name authority Lambert: Ann. Bot. (London) 2: 198. (1805)
Web links