Pinus pungens description

Range map, redrawn from (3).

Pinus pungens Lambert 1805

Common Names

Table Mountain pine, mountain pine (1), hickory pine.

Taxonomic notes

Description

"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 x 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 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. Seeds deltoid-obovoid, oblique; body ca. 6mm, deep purple-brown to black; wing 10-20(-30)mm. 2n=24" (1).

Range

USA: Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Georgia in the Appalachian Mountains and associated Piedmont at 500-1350 m elevation. Habitat dry, mostly sandy or shaly uplands (1).

Big Tree

Diameter 78 cm, height 29 m, crown spread 14 m, located in Stokes County, NC (2).

Oldest

Dendrochronology

Ethnobotany

Used for pulpwood and firewood (1).

Observations

Remarks

Citations

(1) Kral in Flora of North America online.
(2) American Forests 1996.
(3) Burns & Honkala 1990.