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| Linnaeus |
Linnaeus formally coined the name for
pines – Pinus – but at the time he lumped other genera in
with the group. Indeed, even today, city-slicker and indoor types
consider many conifers to be "pines." Pinus was the
Latin name adopted by Linnaeus, and the word is thought to come from
Proto-Indo-European peie meaning "to be fat, swell"
in reference to its sap or pitch. In Sanskrit pitch is pituh
and pinetree is pitudaruh. In Greek pinetree is pitys,
as in Sciadopitys, the "Umbrella pine."
Pinus bungeana 'Temple Gem'
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| Pinus bungeana 'Temple Gem' at the University of Tennessee |
I'm sure there are many plantsmen who
worship the Pinus genus more than I – I'm more of an Abies (true
fir) guy – but no one appreciates more than I the colorful trunks
to be found on many pine species. A few years ago I was very
surprised to find my introduction of Pinus bungeana 'Temple Gem'
happily growing at the University of Tennessee Botanic Garden. It was
shaped as a dense pyramid where the trunk couldn't be seen, and if I
had come equipped with a saw and loppers I would have removed a
liberal amount of the lower foliage so the trunk could be
appreciated, as I have on the original seedling in my garden.
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| Pinus bungeana 'Compact Form' |
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| Alexander von Bunge |
Pinus bungeana is native to central and
northern China, and supposedly the first European to see it was
Russian botanist Alexander von Bunge (1803-1890) in a temple garden
near Beijing in 1831. I saw an old specimen at the "Forbidden
City" in Beijing thirty years ago, and for all I know it was
possibly the same tree old Bunge saw. The trunk was colorful, but
sadly the tree was given only a little square of compacted earth
where tourists trampled. I grew agitated when a scrawny Chinese
ne'er-do-well tossed his still-smoldering cigarette butt at the
tree's base. How ironic: he's probably not around any more due to
smoking, but P. bungeana is popular in oriental classical gardens
because it symbolizes longevity.
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| Pinus bungeana at the Portland Chinese Garden |
A specimen of the "Lacebark pine"
can be found in Portland's Chinese Garden that I grafted myself at
the beginning of my career. When Portland's garden was undergoing
development a large, local landscape firm was hired to place and
plant the trees. The knucklehead in charge had my P. bungeana planted
at ground level, then later decided to put a retaining wall around
the base and filled it with 3' of soil. Fortunately another plantsman
– who did know trees – immediately ordered the removal of the
fill soil and saved the poor choking tree.
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| Pinus bungeana at Kew Gardens |
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| Pinus bungeana at Marty Brooks Nursery |
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| Pinus bungeana 'Silver Ghost' |
I have seen many wonderful specimen
trunks of P. bungeana: photo (1) the famous tree at Kew Gardens,
London; photo (2) another at the nursery of Marty Brooks in
Pennsylvania which displayed the most color I've ever seen; and photo
(3) the spectacular specimen named 'Silver Ghost' at the Dawes
Arboretum in Ohio. My question is – what would the Brooks' tree
look like if planted in my garden, would it still be as colorful? I
do grow 'Silver Ghost' but I have nothing of near comparable size as
the original in Ohio, so I don't know if my oldest will ever match
the brilliance of the mother tree. I ask these questions though I
realize that I'll never live long enough to experiment and find the
answers.
Pinus gerardiana
It is obvious that Pinus gerardiana,
from Afghanistan, northwest India and southwest Tibet, is closely
related to Pinus bungeana. Both species bear needles in fascicles of
three and both feature exfoliating bark. A third "lacebark"
species, Pinus squamata, was discovered in the 1970's in northern
Yunnan, China in a "floristically rich area" according to
Debreczy and Racz in Conifers Around the World. With only 36
existing trees (in 2000) it is the world's most rare pine. P.
squamata differs from the other two with its needles in fascicles of
five, making the new discovery an important botanical link between
Pinus species. I've never seen P. squamata to know if the bark
exfoliates as attractively as P. bungeana – P. gerardiana does not
– but I look forward to the day I can add it to the collection. I
have a good-sized specimen of P. gerardiana at Flora Farm, but I
consider it a BIO plant (Botanic Interest Only) and it is not in
production. It is ornamentally inferior to P. bungeana (USDA zone 4)
and is not nearly as hardy (USDA zone 7). The specific name honors
Captain Alexander Gerard of the Bengal Native Infantry who discovered
it in 1821.
Pinus densiflora
Not surprisingly Pinus densiflora is
commonly known as the "Japanese Red pine," for it features
reddish flaking bark. It is native to Korea, northeastern China and
southeast Russia, but in Japan it is commonly called akamatsu
(red pine). I have an old specimen of 'Umbraculifera' with red bark
that years ago was called 'Tanyosho' in the trade. I even have my old
nursery catalogs where I was selling 1-year Tanyosho grafts for $2.50
apiece. Later I learned that spelling was wrong, and a more accurate
translation would be tagyoushoe, but since I don't sell the
cultivar anymore it's too late to make amends. South Korean people
honor P. densiflora because to them it represents the Korean spirit,
and the tree is even mentioned in their national anthem. They detest
the "Japanese Red pine" name and the Korea Forest Service
refers to it as the "Korean Red pine."
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| Pinus tabuliformis 'Twisted Sister' |
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| Twisted Sister |
Not to be outdone, the Chinese have
their "Red pine" too – Pinus tabuliformis, and its bark
is similar to P. densiflora. The foliage and shapes of these two
(2-needle) species is boring to me, and the only redeeming ornamental
value I can find is with the bark. I grow only one cultivar of P.
tabuliformis, 'Twisted Sister', which was a seedling selection by
Rich Eyre of Rich's Foxwillow Pines, and it is known for young plants
that have twisting branches. I think Rich was inspired to borrow the
'Twisted Sister' name from a heavy metal hair band from New Jersey
which was popular in the 1970's. And for you stoners out there, not
me, Twisted Sister is also the name of a strain of potent weed, and
even if you don't know it your children probably do.
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| Pinus sylvestris |
Pinus sylvestris
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| Pinus sylvestris 'Edwin Hillier' |
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| Pinus sylvestris 'Gold Coin' |
Other than the colorful trunk I'm not
enamoured with the "Scot's pine," Pinus sylvestris, even
though I've grown and sold many cultivars. Early in my career I and
other growers referred to the species as "Scotch pine." One
day I was taken to task by an irate Scotsman and ordered to correct
the name – from Scotch to Scots. He was probably quite friendly
when sober, but I didn't want to take chances so I made the change.
P. sylvestris has a large range in Europe with var. mongolica
extending all the way to northeast China, therefore a lot of
variation in hardiness and foliage color exists. I won't go into the
details, but the better conifer growers know which strains are the
more hardy and which produce the best, most fibrous root systems to
aid in digging and transplanting. I still produce a few cultivars of
P. sylvestris, such as 'Gold Coin' and 'Gold Medal', but sales for
the dwarf or unusual green cultivars are pretty much dead. I couldn't
even sell a nice blue selection – 'Edwin Hillier' – and it was
dropped from production years ago; but gleefully I spotted a specimen
from considerable distance at the Sir Harold Hillier Arboretum a
dozen years ago near their impressive conifer hill. Originally the
scions were generously sent to me by an ex-Hillier employee B.H. but
sadly the last tree was sold with nothing propagated behind it, and
'Edwin H.' joins in a long list of cultivars that briefly flashed
before me...only to disappear forever. Bittersweet memories haunt the
nurseryman as well as the poet, but that's what you get when
horticulture is your livelihood.
Pinus ponderosa
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| Pinus ponderosa champion tree |
Five years ago I drove to the central
Oregon town of Bend with a Buchholz Nursery intern, Yuki Tamori –
who I dubbed "Today, Tomorrow...Tamori." We stayed for
three days with our purpose of hiking during the day and drinking
beer at night in the world's beer capital of Bend, Oregon. Sorry
Germany, Belgium and elsewhere, Bend is where you go to drink real
beer! Yuki "thought" he might pursue a career in
horticulture, but Buchholz Nursery cured him of that, and ultimately
he returned to Japan and now is a craftsman at a Japanese brewery.
One of our day hikes took us through the snow to the Big Tree,
the world's largest Pinus ponderosa located in the La Pine State
Park.* Of course it has a marvelously configured trunk with plates of
red and black. There are three varieties of P. ponderosa: 1)
the Pacific ponderosa pine (var. benthamiana), 2) the Rocky Mountain
ponderosa (var. scopulorum) and 3) P. ponderosa var. ponderosa, and
our visit was to the latter variety. To register as a
"champion" tree, one measures the height – in this case
167', the trunk circumference at breast height 348" and the
canopy spread 68'...for a total of 532 points. David Douglas was the
first European to discover P. ponderosa, and that was near
present-day Spokane, Washington in 1826. However he first
misidentified it as Pinus resinosa, then in 1829 he realized he had a
new pine and named it for its ponderously heavy wood. It is the most
widely distributed pine species in North America.
*Wow! Just a few hours after writing
about Big Tree I picked up a newspaper article about Oregon parks –
which I easily could have missed – that reported that the Champion
was no more: "because some 40 feet fell off its crown, the sad
result of weather and old age (the tree is estimated to be around 500
years old)."
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| Pinus jeffreyi |
Pinus jeffreyi
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| John Jeffrey's signature |
Pinus pinea
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| Appian Way |
Again, I'm not much impressed with the
foliage or form of most Pinus species, however, Pinus pinea – the
"Italian Stone pine" is an exception with its
characteristic "table-top" appearance; and to complement
that, the trunk is wonderful too. Also known as the "Roman
pine," one cannot help but to imagine the Pines of the Appian
Way where composer Respighi's great crescendo suggests the
approach of Roman legions, and where the brass-dominated closing
confirms the might of the Roman Empire.* I was attracted to this
silly music way before I knew anything about P. pinea. Though listed
as only hardy to USDA zone 8 (10 degrees F) I planted one at the
nursery but it perished in a 0 degree Arctic blast a few years later,
so I'm limited to visiting warm-climate arboreta to see their
specimens.
*You can easily google a U.S. Marine
Band's rendition because it is a work of the U.S. federal government
– one of the few things worthwhile – and therefore the
performance is "in the public domain."
Pinus echinata
I had two Pinus echinata planted in the
Waterfall section at the nursery, but no visitor was able to identify
the species – or really wanted to – but nevertheless they (the
trees) both eventually developed attractive trunks. On the Buchholz
website I describe P. echinata as "A medium-size evergreen
conifer with an open pyramidal form. Long thin needles are light
green. An attractive 'airy' tree for the landscape. Ornamental
reddish-brown bark appears in scaly plates on mature trees...which is
the subject of this blog. The specific name means "spiny"
which refers to the sharp-tipped cone scales and the species (also
known as "short-leaf pine") occurs from southern New York
down to north Florida...and as far east as to Oklahoma and Texas.
Other than the attractive trunk, the whore-species will readily
hybridize with other Pinus species such as Pinus taeda ("Loblolly
pine") and Pinus rigida ("Pitch pine"). After 30 years
one of my specimens abruptly turned brown and died...followed by its
companion a year later. So: both gone now, and it turned out that a
water pipe feeding the waterfall sprung a leak and the two P.
echinata specimens died from soaked roots. Yikes!: one day prominent
members in the Flora Wonder Arboretum, but a year later both vanished
from the ark.
Pinus elliottii
Similar to Pinus echinata is Pinus
elliottii, and one could easily argue that neither of the two species
add anything ornamental to horticulture...unless you are a trunk-man,
a torso-man such as I. P. elliottii is unceremoniously known
as the "Slash pine" – what a terrible common name! –
that is native to the botanically-speaking hellhole of South Carolina
to Louisiana, but I do appreciate its orange to dark-brown fissured,
plated bark. Squirrels are particularly fond of the seeds so they
have a different perspective of the species. The "Slash pine"
or "Swamp pine" name honors Stephen Elliott (1771-1830) who
first described it as distinct from the "Loblolly" (P.
taeda) species. P. elliottii is useless for my arboretum since it is
hardy to only USDA zone 9 (20-30 degrees F), yet, as with P. pinea, I
do appreciate seeing it in warm-weather arboreta.
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| Pinus longaeva |
Pinus longaeva
I won't be surprised if they find a
pine species growing on Mars – after all Pinus longaeva survives
over two miles high in the White Mountain area of southeastern
California. It is a fascinating place with dry brilliant-light
summers and upwards of 13' (400cm) of snow in the winter. The trunk
of a healthy normal-growing P. longaeva at my nursery is not so
interesting, but at White Mountain the weathered dead-wood can last
for centuries. Some specimens have green needles and maybe even
cones even though 90% of the trunk is dead. Even if 100% dead the
tree lives on as a wonderful sculpture, a member of the white-stick
forest.
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| Pinus roxburghii |
Pinus roxburghii
Gujjars
Pinus roxburghii is the "Chir
pine," a USDA zone 8 (10 degrees F) tree that managed to survive
for 20 years even though we've been a little colder. Perhaps its
Pinus sylvestris rootstock helped it to survive, but five years ago
it gave up the ghost. According to Rushforth in Conifers
(1987), Pinus roxburghii and the closely related Pinus canariensis
"once formed a single population stretching from the Canary
Isles across southern Europe to the Himalayas. Unfortunately, a hardy
provenance of Chir pine still has to be found." I photographed
the tree above in northern India at about 10,000' elevation, but
first I had to wait a half hour for a tribe of nomadic Gujjars with
their two hundred herd of buffalos to pass.
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| Pinus montezumae |
Pinus montezumae
Mature specimens of Pinus montezumae, a
tender Mexican species, have beautiful trunks. I've had it, and lost
it, a couple of times, so I should probably give up for good. What
kept me trying was a handsome old specimen just 200 miles away at the
Washington Park Arboretum in Seattle. One can purchase Montezuma seed
but you probably can't be certain if it's pure as the species can
hybridize with others. At its best, though, the green pendant needles
are long and thin and glisten in the light.
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| Pinus patula |
Pinus patula
Another shining pine with long drooping
needles is the Mexican species Pinus patula, and that is one that
will survive in my collection. The branches are brittle however, and
I've had tops break in a windy rainstorm or with heavy snow. My first
start of P. patula was when I bought seed, and I got about 300 for
just $10. The problem was that they all germinated. I potted
them up and they grew very fast, too fast. What to do with 300, that
was too many for me to sell? I kept the best 100 and threw the others
out. It took a few years but I sold them all, with the last tree
being about 15' tall. I now keep just one specimen at Flora Farm, and
it was produced by grafting onto Pinus sylvestris. Its trunk is
colored a pleasing cinnamon-red but I have seen older trees in the
wild in Oaxaca and they are gray and rough and not so attractive.
Actually I guess I like pines as much
as any plantsman, now that I have considered them for this blog.
Let's just say that the species with ornamentally attractive torsos
are my favorites.
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