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Red Pine

Pinus resinosa

Summary 5

Pinus resinosa, known as red pine or Norway pine, is a pine native to North America. It occurs from Newfoundland west to Manitoba, and south to Pennsylvania, with several smaller, disjunct populations occurring in the Appalachian Mountains in Virginia and West Virginia, as well as a few small pockets in extreme northern New Jersey and northern Illinois.

Red pine is a coniferous evergreen tree characterized by tall, straight growth. It usually ranges from 65 – 115 feet in height and 3 ft in trunk diameter, exceptionally reaching 145 ft tall. The crown is conical, becoming a narrow rounded dome with age. The bark is thick and gray-brown at the base of the tree, but thin, flaky and bright orange-red in the upper crown; the tree's name derives from this distinctive character. Some red color may be seen in the fissures of the bark. The leaves are needle-like, dark yellow-green, in fascicles of two, 4 – 7 inches long, and brittle. The leaves snap cleanly when bent; this character, stated as diagnostic for red pine in some texts, is however shared by several other pine species.

Sources and Credits

  1. (c) timmenzies on Flickr, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pinus_resinosa_foliagecone.jpg
  2. (c) Susan Elliott, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Susan Elliott
  3. (c) JanetandPhil, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-ND), http://www.flickr.com/photos/30979614@N07/3484614163
  4. (c) Douglas Goldman, some rights reserved (CC BY), uploaded by Douglas Goldman
  5. Adapted by Tom Pollard from a work by (c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinus_resinosa

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