Table mountain pine

Table Mountain pine,[2] Pinus pungens, also called hickory pine, prickly pine,[2] or mountain pine,[3] is a small pine native to the Appalachian Mountains in the United States.

Table Mountain pine
Cultivated specimen
Morton Arboretum acc. 255-86-3
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Gymnosperms
Division: Pinophyta
Class: Pinopsida
Order: Pinales
Family: Pinaceae
Genus: Pinus
Subgenus: P. subg. Pinus
Section: P. sect. Trifoliae
Subsection: P. subsect. Australes
Species:
P. pungens
Binomial name
Pinus pungens
Natural range

Description

Pinus pungens is a tree of modest size (6–12 metres (20–39 ft)), and has a rounded, irregular shape. The needles are in bundles of two, occasionally three, yellow-green to mid green, fairly stout, and 4–7 centimetres (1+1⁄2–3 in) long. The pollen is released early compared to other pines in the area which minimizes hybridization. The cones are very short-stalked (almost sessile), ovoid, pale pinkish to yellowish buff, and 4–9 centimetres (1+1⁄2–3+1⁄2 in) long; each scale bears a stout, sharp spine 4–10 millimetres (5⁄32–25⁄64 in) long. Sapling trees can bear cones in as little as 5 years.

Male cones (pollen cones)

Buds ovoid to cylindric, red-brown, 6–9 millimetres (15⁄64–23⁄64 in), resinous.[4]

Ecology
Young female cone

P. pungens prefers dry conditions and is mostly found on rocky slopes, favoring higher elevations, from 300–1,760 metres (980–5,770 ft) altitude. It commonly grows as single scattered trees or small groves, not in large forests like most other pines, and needs periodic disturbances for seedling establishment. Throughout the Appalachian Mountain range, P. pungens pungens is a component of conifer-dominated communities in combination with other pine species.[5] The three tallest known ones are in Paris Mountain State Park, South Carolina; they are 26.85 to 29.96 metres (88 ft 1 in to 98 ft 4 in) tall[4]

In culture

Pinus pungens is the Lonesome Pine of the 1908 novel The Trail of the Lonesome Pine by John Fox, and popularized in the Laurel and Hardy film Way out West:

On the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia
On the Trail of the Lonesome Pine

Several "Lonesome Pine" hiking trails have been waymarked in the Blue Ridge Mountains and elsewhere in the Appalachians.

References
  1. Farjon, A. (2013). "Pinus pungens". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2013: e.T42406A2977840. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2013-1.RLTS.T42406A2977840.en. Retrieved 20 November 2021.
  2. "Pinus pungens". Germplasm Resources Information Network. Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture. Retrieved 4 January 2018.
  3. Moore, Gerry; Kershner, Bruce; Craig Tufts; Daniel Mathews; Gil Nelson; Spellenberg, Richard; Thieret, John W.; Terry Purinton; Block, Andrew (2008). National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to Trees of North America. New York: Sterling. p. 71. ISBN 978-1-4027-3875-3.
  4. "Pinus pungens (Table Mountain pine) description - The Gymnosperm Database". www.conifers.org. Retrieved 2019-06-11.
  5. Brose, Patrick H. (2017). "Characteristics, Histories, and Future Succession of Northern Pinus pungens Stands". The American Midland Naturalist. 177 (1): 126–142. ISSN 0003-0031.
  • Farjon, A. & Frankis, M. P. (2002). Pinus pungens. Curtis's Botanical Magazine 19: 97–103.
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