Pinus rigida description

Range map, redrawn from (4).

Pinus rigida Miller 1768

Common Names

Pitch pine (1), pin rigide (2).

Taxonomic notes

It is known to hybridize naturally with P. echinata (2).

Description

"Trees to 31 m; trunk to 0.9 m diam., straight or crooked, commonly with adventitious sprouts; crown rounded or irregular. Bark red-brown, deeply and irregularly furrowed, with long, irregularly rectangular, flat, scaly ridges, resin pockets absent. Branches arching-spreading to ascending, poorly self-pruning; 2-year-old branchlets stout (mostly over 5 mm thick), orange-brown, aging darker brown, rough. Buds ovoid to ovoid-cylindric, red-brown, ca. 1-1.5 cm, resinous; scale margins fringed, apex cuspidate. Leaves 3(-5) per fascicle, spreading to ascending, persisting 2-3 years, 5-10(-15) cm x 1-1.5(-2) mm, straight, twisted, deep to pale yellow-green, all surfaces with fine stomatal lines, margins serrulate, apex abruptly subulate-acuminate; sheath 0.9-1.2 cm, base persistent. Pollen cones cylindric, ca. 20 mm, yellow. Seed cones maturing in 2 years, shedding seeds soon thereafter or variously serotinous and long-persistent, often clustered, symmetric, conic to ovoid before opening, broadly ovoid with flat or slightly convex base when open, 3-9 cm, creamy brown to light red-brown, sessile to short-stalked, base truncate, scales firm, with dark red-brown border on adaxial surface distally; apophyses slightly raised, rhombic, with strong transverse keels; umbo central, low-triangular, with slender, downcurved prickle. Seeds broadly obliquely obovoid-deltoid; body 4-5(-6) mm, dark brown, mottled darker, or near black; wing 15-20mm. 2n=24" (2).

Range

Canada: Ontario and Québec; S through USA: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. Upland or lowland sites on sterile, dry to boggy soils; at 0-1400 m elevation (2).

Big Tree

Diameter 129 cm, height 29 m, crown spread 13 m, located in Newberry, NH (3).

Oldest

Dendrochronology

Ethnobotany

A low-grade timber species (2).

Observations

Remarks

It is fire successional, sprouts adventitiously, and is frequently shrubby in the northern part of its range (2).

Citations

(1) Silba 1986.
(2) Kral in Flora of North America online.
(3) American Forests 1996.
(4) Burns & Honkala 1990.