A very small cedar. Saw it during the group outing to UBNA.
40ish feet tall. The whitish barked trunk in the middle, and the uneven evergreen top.
The bark on young trees is thin, smooth, gray, and contains numerous resin blisters. On mature trees, it is thick and corky. The shoots are brown to olive-green, turning gray-brown with age, smooth, though not as smooth as fir shoots, and finely pubescent with short dark hairs. The buds are a very distinctive narrow conic shape, 4–8 mm long, with red-brown bud scales. The leaves are spirally arranged but slightly twisted at the base to lie in flattish either side of the shoot, needle-like, 2–3.5 cm long, green above with no stomata, and with two whitish stomatal bands below.
Shrubby dark green evergreen tree not more than 7 feet tall. Growing on barren, acidic soil of pygmy forest.
Subspecies of Beach Pine adapted to acidic soils and hard pan on coastal terraces. Mature trees were 7 feet or less tall. Lower branches were without needle bundles.
