pine

pine¹

—pinelike, adj.

/puyn/, n.

1. any evergreen, coniferous tree of the genus Pinus, having long, needle-shaped leaves, certain species of which yield timber, turpentine, tar, pitch, etc. Cf. pine family.

2. any of various similar coniferous trees.

3. the wood of the pine tree.

4. Informal. the pineapple.

[bef. 1000; ME; OE pin < L pinus]

pine²

/puyn/, v., pined, pining, n.

v.i.

1. to yearn deeply; suffer with longing; long painfully (often fol. by for): to pine for one's home and family.

2. to fail gradually in health or vitality from grief, regret, or longing (often fol. by away): Separated by their families, the lovers pined away.

3. Archaic. to be discontented; fret.

v.t.

4. Archaic. to suffer grief or regret over.

n.

5. Archaic. painful longing.

[bef. 900; ME pinen to torture, torment, inflict pain, be in pain; OE pinian to torture, deriv. of pin torture (ME pine) < LL pena, L poena punishment. See PAIN]

Syn. 1. See yearn. 2. dwindle, decline, languish, droop, waste.

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Any of 10 genera of coniferous trees (rarely shrubs) of the family Pinaceae (see conifer), native to northern temperate regions, especially about 90 species of ornamental and timber evergreen conifers of the genus Pinus.

Needlelike leaves and cones are solitary or in bunches. Shallow root systems make pines susceptible to wind and surface disturbance. The family includes fir, Douglas fir, hemlock, spruce, larch, and cedar. Many species are sources of softwood timber, paper pulp, oils, and resins. Some are cultivated as ornamentals.

Cluster of pollen-bearing male cones of Austrian (black) pine (Pinus nigra).

Grant Heilman—EB Inc.

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▪ plant genus

Introduction

      any of about 90 species of ornamental and timber evergreen conifers of the genus Pinus (family Pinaceae), distributed throughout the world but native primarily to northern temperate regions.

      Young trees are usually conical, with whorls of horizontal branches; older trees may have round, flat, or spreading crowns. Most species have thick, rough, furrowed bark. Pine trees can tolerate drought but require full sunlight and clean air for good growth and reproduction.

      Pines have two types of branches, long shoots and short shoots, and three types of leaves, primordial, scale, and adult. Seedling plants bear the lance-shaped, spirally arranged primordial leaves; the triangular-scale leaves, also lance-shaped, are borne on the long shoots of older trees. Both long and short shoots develop in the axils of the deciduous scale leaves. The needlelike, photosynthetic adult leaves, with two or more resin canals, are borne in fascicles (bundles) of two to five (rarely, up to eight or solitary) at the tip of each short shoot; they remain on the tree 2 to 17 years.

      Pollen-bearing “male” cones (cone) are covered with many fertile scales, each of which bears two pollen sacs. Ovule-bearing “female” cones, borne on the same tree, have several spirally arranged bracts (modified leaves), each of which is located below a scale with two ovules (potential seeds). In spring or early summer the pollen sacs release pollen through longitudinal slits; each grain has two air bladders for wind dispersal. The scales on the female cones open to receive the pollen and then close; actual fertilization takes place late the following spring. After fertilization, the woody female cone develops over a two- to three-year period. In some species, the cones open at maturity and the seeds are released; in others the cones remain closed for several years until opened by rotting, by food-seeking animals, or by fire. In some pines the scale bearing the nutlike seed may be expanded to form a wing for airborne dispersal.

      Pines are softwoods, but commercially they may be designated as soft pines or hard pines. Soft pines, such as white, sugar, and piñon pines, have relatively soft timber, needles in bundles of five (less commonly, one to four), stalked cones with scales lacking prickles, and little resin. Their wood is close-grained, with thin, nearly white sapwood; the sheaths of the leaf clusters are deciduous, and the leaves contain a single fibrovascular bundle. Hard pines, such as Scots, Corsican, and loblolly pines, have relatively hard timber, needles in bundles of two or three (rarely, five to eight), cone scales with prickles, and large amounts of resin. Their wood is coarse-grained and usually dark-coloured, with pale, often thick sapwood; the sheaths of the leaf clusters are persistent, and the leaves have two fibrovascular bundles.

      The chief value of pines is in the construction and paper-products industries, but they are also sources of turpentine, rosin, oils, and wood tars (naval stores); longleaf, slash, cluster, and Chir pines are cut for these materials. Charcoal, lampblack, and fuel gases are distillation by-products. Pine-leaf oil, used medicinally, is a distillation product of the leaves. Edible pine seeds are sold commercially as pine nuts, piñons, or pignons, produced by stone, Armand, Siberian, piñon, Torrey, Coulter, and digger pines. Many species of pines are cultivated as ornamentals, including black, white, Himalayan, and stone pines; others, such as Scots, Corsican, cluster, and knobcone pines, are planted in reforestation projects or for windbreaks.

      Pines are susceptible to several fungal diseases, among them white-pine blister rust, and are attacked by many insects, such as sawflies, weevils, bark beetles, and tip moths. Some pines are also susceptible to nematode infections and infestations by dwarf mistletoes (Arceuthobium, a genus of parasitic flowering plants). Pine forests often suffer severe fire damage, being very combustible because of their high resin content.

      Many botanists consider the genus Pinus to contain two subgenera. Haploxylon, or soft, pines have one fibrovascular bundle; Diploxylon, or hard, pines have two.

      Many pines have both lumber trade names and several common names. Numerous trees commonly called pines are not true pines but belong to other genera in the family Pinaceae or to other families of conifers.

Major Eurasian pines

      The Scots pine (P. sylvestris) of northern Europe, when grown under optimum conditions, attains a height of 20 to 40 metres (70 to 130 feet). It is conical in youth, acquiring a mushroom crown in maturity, and has a straight trunk as much as a metre in diameter, fiery red-brown bark, and gnarled, twisted boughs densely clothed with blue-green foliage at the extremities. P. sylvestris occurs in varying abundance from Finland and Sweden to the mountains of Spain and the higher slopes of Mount Etna and, longitudinally, from the shores of the North Sea to Siberia. Abundant in the Scandinavian peninsula, it is the fir (fur, fura) of the old Norsemen and still retains that name in Great Britain, although it is a true pine. Economically it is valued for timber but also for turpentine and tar.

      Closely allied to the Scots pine—and perhaps to be regarded as a mere alpine form of that species—is the dwarf P. pumilio, a recumbent bush, generally only a metre or two high, but with long zig-zag stems that root occasionally at the kneelike bends where they rest upon the ground. It abounds in the Bavarian and Tirolese Alps.

      P. laricio, the Corsican pine, grows to a height of 30 or even 45 metres, with a straight trunk and branches in regular whorls, forming in a large tree a pyramidal head. This pine abounds in Corsica and is also found in Spain, southern France, and Greece.

      The black, or Austrian, pine (P. nigra) derives its name from the sombre aspect of its dark green, sharp, rigid, rather long leaves. The tree, up to 30 metres tall, displays a deeply fissured bark and light brown branches. This species, widely cultivated for ornament, is native to Europe and western Asia.

      The cluster, or pinaster (P. pinaster), a vigorous grower in coastal sand, has been cultivated extensively for the purpose of stabilizing sand drifts, especially on the dunes of the Bay of Biscay and the Mediterranean. Growing to a height of from 12 to 24 metres, the deeply furrowed trunk occasionally reaches a diameter of a metre or more at the base. Forests of pinaster, apart from the production of timber, have great economic value as a source of turpentine.

      P. pinea is the stone pine of Italy. Its spreading, rounded canopy of light green foliage, supported on a tall and often branchless trunk, forms a striking feature of the landscape of Italy, as well as of some other Mediterranean lands. The cones have been prized from the ancient days of Rome for their edible seeds (pignons), which are still used for food.

      Similar to P. pinea is P. griffithi, the Himalayan, or blue, pine, which differs chiefly in its longer cones and drooping, glaucous foliage. It grows in Kumaeon and Bhutan and on some of the Nepal ranges, where it attains large dimensions.

      The Eurasian stone pine (P. cembra) abounds on the Alps, the Carpathians, and the Siberian ranges. The oily seeds, like those of P. pinea, are eaten by the inhabitants of the Alps and Siberia and yield a fine oil used for food. The wood is remarkably even-grained and is used by Swiss woodcarvers.

Major North American pines

      The eastern white pine (P. strobus), known also as Weymouth pine, is one of the most valuable of North American timber trees because of its large size and the soft, even grain of its white wood. It once formed extensive forests from Newfoundland to Manitoba, from Minnesota to Maine and southward in the mountains to Georgia, but it has been cut intensively for so long that by the second half of the 20th century very few old trees remained. On deep rich soil P. strobus attains a height of 60 metres and a trunk diameter of 1 to 1.5 metres. The western white pine (P. monticola) grows in the mountains of the northwestern United States and British Columbia, has light brown wood, and is extensively cut for lumber.

      The sugar pine (P. lambertiana) of California is the largest of known pines, often 60 to 70 metres tall and with a trunk diameter of 2 or even 3.5 metres. Its crown is pyramidal, with horizontal or slightly drooping branches.

      North American stone pines are typically timberline species and are more important as protectors of valuable watersheds than for the timber they produce. The whitebark pine (P. albicaulis) extends along mountain slopes from British Columbia to California and eastward to Montana and Wyoming. The Mexican white pine (P. ayacahuite) attains its northern limits in the southwestern United States.

      The single-leaf piñon (P. monophylla) occurs sporadically through northern Mexico and the southwestern United States. The Parry piñon (P. quadrifolia) is the four-needle piñon of southern California and northern Baja California. Nut pine (P. edulis) is the most widely distributed tree of this nut group. The seeds of the group are large and tasty and are sold in markets as pine nuts.

      Longleaf pine (P. palustris) is the most notable yellow pine of the southern United States; it abounds on sandy soils from the Carolinas and Florida westward to Louisiana and Texas. The most marked features of the tree are its long, tufted foliage and its tall, columnar trunk, sometimes 35 metres high, which furnishes one of the most valued pine timbers. Loblolly pine (P. taeda), shortleaf pine (P. echinata), and slash pine (P. caribaea) are other very important timber trees in the southern United States. The last-named extends over the Florida Keys to several islands in the Caribbean.

      Ponderosa, western yellow, or bull pine (P. ponderosa), which grows from 45 to 60 metres high, with a massive trunk 1.5 to 2.5 metres in diameter, is noted for its soft, easily worked wood. It is the most widely distributed American pine, being found in the mountain forests of western North America from British Columbia to South Dakota and south to Texas and Mexico.

      The beautiful Monterey pine (P. radiata), found sparingly along the California coast, is distinguished by the brilliant colour of its foliage. The Torrey pine (P. torreyana) is found only in a narrow strip along the coast near San Diego, Calif., and on Santa Rosa Island and is the least widely distributed of all known pines.

      The pitch pine (P. rigida), found from the coast of Massachusetts southwestward throughout the Appalachian region, is a tree of from 12 to 15 metres in height, with rugged trunk, occasionally a metre in diameter. The tree is one of the few pines that will flourish in salt marshes.

      The bristlecone pines (bristlecone pine) (P. aristata and P. longaeva) are restricted to relatively high mountaintops in the southern Rocky Mountains and adjacent ranges of the southwestern United States. Western bristlecone pine (P. longaeva) is notable for being extremely long-lived, with a specimen from Nevada thought to be about 5,000 years old. Frequently, these trees are damaged by severe climate, becoming contorted and gnarled, with most of the tree dead.

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