Pinus virginiana
Pinus balfouriana
Jersey pine, scrub pine, Virginia pine
foxtail pine
gray-brown with irregular, scaly-plated ridges, on upper sections of trunk reddish, scaly.
gray to salmon or cinnamon, platy or irregularly deep-fissured or with irregular blocky plates.
spreading-ascending to spreading-descending;
twigs slender, red- or purple-tinged, often glaucous, aging red-brown to gray, rough.
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.
ovoid to cylindric, red-brown, 0.6–1cm, resinous or not resinous;
scale margins white-fringed.
ovoid-acuminate, red-brown, 0.8–1cm, resinous.
2 per fascicle, spreading or ascending, persisting 3–4 years, 2–8cm × 1–1.5mm, strongly twisted, deep to pale yellow-green, all surfaces with inconspicuous stomatal lines, margins serrulate, apex narrowly acute;
sheath 0.4–1cm, base persistent.
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.
ellipsoid-cylindric, 10–20mm, red-brown or yellow.
ellipsoid, ca. 6–10mm, red.
cones maturing in 2 years, shedding seeds soon thereafter, persisting to 5 years, symmetric, lance-ovoid or lanceoloid before opening, ovoid when open, 3–7(–8)cm, dull red-brown, nearly sessile or on stalks to 1cm, scales rigid, with strong purple-red or purple-brown border on adaxial surface distally;
apophyses slightly thickened, slightly elongate;
umbo central, low-pyramidal, with slender, stiff prickle.
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.
=24.
=24.
Pinus virginiana
Pinus balfouriana
Pinus virginiana is weedy and fire successional and often forms large stands. It is mostly too small and too profusely branched to be valued except as pulpwood.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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.)
MD Biodiversity
WildflowerSearch
iNaturalist
USDA Plants Database
CA
OR
Flora NW
PNW Herbaria
