Pinus strobus

**Pinus strobus**, known as eastern white pine, northern white pine, white pine, Weymouth pine (in Britain), or soft pine, is a large conifer native to eastern North America. Its range stretches from Newfoundland, Canada, west through the Great Lakes region to southeastern Manitoba and Minnesota, then south along the Appalachian Mountains and upper Piedmont to northernmost Georgia, with rare occurrences at higher elevations in northeastern Alabama. It is considered rare in Indiana. For the Haudenosaunee, this tree is the central symbol of their confederation, called the "Tree of Peace."

**Distribution**

*P. strobus* grows in cool-temperate, hemiboreal, and southern-mid boreal forests of eastern North America. It favors well-drained or sandy soils and humid climates, but also tolerates boggy areas and rocky highlands. In mixed forests, it towers over many other trees, including large broadleaf hardwoods, and provides food and shelter for birds like the red crossbill and small mammals such as squirrels. Fossilized leaves and pollen have been found by paleobotanist Brian Axsmith in the Gulf Coastal Plain, where the tree no longer grows. Eastern white pine forests once covered much of north-central and northeastern North America, but only 1% of old-growth stands remain after extensive logging from the 18th to early 20th centuries. Virgin stands are protected in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and other confirmed old-growth sites include Algonquin Provincial Park, Quetico Provincial Park, Algoma Highlands, and Sainte-Marguerite River Old Forest in Canada; Estivant Pines, Huron Mountains, Porcupine Mountains State Park, and Sylvania Wilderness Area in Michigan; Hartwick Pines State Park in Michigan's Lower Peninsula; Menominee Indian Reservation in Wisconsin; Lost 40 SNA and Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota; White Pines State Park in Illinois; Cook Forest State Park, Hearts Content Scenic Area, and Anders Run Natural Area in Pennsylvania; and Linville Gorge Wilderness in North Carolina. Small groves or individual old-growth specimens appear across the U.S. range, including Ordway Grove in Maine, Ice Glen in Massachusetts, and Adirondack Park in New York. Many large specimens come from advanced old-field succession, such as the tall stands in Mohawk Trail State Forest and William Cullen Bryant Homestead in Massachusetts. As an introduced species, *P. strobus* has naturalized in the Outer Western Carpathians of the Czech Republic and southern Poland, spreading from ornamental plantings.

**Description**

Eastern white pine is an evergreen with a deep, asymmetrically cylindrical crown of outstretched, thin branches that are gently upward-angled to nearly horizontal in well-separated annual tiers. Like other members of the white pine group (*Pinus* subgenus *Strobus*), its needles occur in fascicles of five (rarely three or four) with a deciduous sheath. The needles are flexible, bluish-green, finely serrated, and 5–13 cm long. Seed cones are slender, 8–16 cm long (rarely longer) and 4–5 cm broad when open, with scales that have a rounded apex and slightly reflexed, often resinous tip. Seeds are 4–5 mm long with a slender 15–20 mm wing, dispersed by wind, with cone production peaking every 3 to 5 years. Pollen and seed cones emerge separately with new growth; pollen cones are 5–15 mm long and straw-colored in a dense band at the base of a long shoot, while seed cones are mostly 8–20 cm long near the tips of long shoots, green before maturity. Cone maturation takes two years, with cones falling the following spring. Branches are spaced about every 18 inches on the trunk, with five or six branches appearing like spokes on a wagon wheel. The tree is self-fertile, but self-pollinated seeds often produce weak, stunted, malformed seedlings. Mature trees are typically 200–250 years old, with some exceeding 400 years; a tree near Syracuse, New York, was dated to 458 years in the late 1980s, and trees in Michigan and Wisconsin reached roughly 500 years. White pines form strong, dominant roots similar to taproots, then later develop lateral roots from terminal shoots during propagation.

**Dimensions**

Eastern white pine is considered the tallest tree in eastern North America, possibly sharing that status with the deciduous tulip tree in a few overlapping areas. In precolonial stands, it was frequently reported to grow as tall as 70 m or more; no accurate records exist, but it may have reached that height on rare occasions. James Brown of Arniston, a forester and later Inspector of Woods and Forests in Port Elgin, Ontario, wrote in 1882: "In its native habitats this pine grows to very large dimensions. We have measured many of them as they lay fe..."