PINE TREE
A Pine Tree is a coniferous tree in the genus Pinus, in the family Pinaceae.
They make up the monotypic subfamily Pinoideae.
There are about 115 species of pine, although different authorities accept between 105 and 125 species.
Distribution of a Pine Tree:
Pines are native to most of the Northern Hemisphere.
In Eurasia, they range from the Canary Islands and Scotland east to the Russian Far East, and the Philippines, north to just over 70°N in Norway (Scots Pine) and eastern Siberia (Siberian Dwarf Pine), and south to northernmost Africa, the Himalaya and Southeast Asia, with one species (Sumatran Pine) just crossing the Equator in Sumatra to 2°S.
In North America, they range from 66°N in Canada (Jack Pine) south to 12°N in Nicaragua (Caribbean Pine). The highest diversity in the genus occurs in Mexico and California.
Pines have been introduced in subtropical and temperate portions of the Southern Hemisphere, including Chile, Brazil, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, where they are grown widely as a source of timber, and some species are becoming invasive
Morphology of a Pine Tree:
Pines are evergreen and resinous trees (rarely shrubs) growing to 3-80 m tall, with the majority of species reaching between 15-45 m tall. The smallest are Siberian Dwarf Pine and Potosi Pinyon, and the tallest, Sugar Pine. Pines are long-lived, typically reaching ages of 100-1,000 years, some even more.
The longest-lived is the Great Basin Bristlecone Pine Pinus longaeva, one individual of which at 4,839 years (2007) is the oldest living organism in the world.
The bark of most pines is thick and scaly, but some species have thin, flaking bark.
The branches are produced in regular "pseudowhorls", actually a very tight spiral but appearing like a ring of branches arising from the same point. Many pines are uninodal, producing just one such whorl of branches each year, from buds at the tip of the year's new shoot, but others are multinodal, producing two or more whorls of branches per year.
The spiral growth of branches, needles and cone scales are arranged in Fibonacci number ratios.
The new spring shoots are sometimes called "candles"; they are covered in brown or whitish bud scales and point upward at first, then later turn green and spread outward.
These "candles" offer foresters a means to evaluate fertility of the soil and vigour of the trees.
Foliage of a Pine Tree:
Pines have four types of leaves:
Seed leaves (cotyledons) on seedlings, borne in a whorl of 4-24.
Juvenile leaves, which follow immediately on seedlings and young plants, 2-6 cm long, single, green or often blue-green, and arranged spirally on the shoot. These are produced for six months to five years, rarely longer (and also produced later in life after injury in some pines).
Scale leaves, similar to bud scales, small, brown and non-photosynthetic, and arranged spirally like the juvenile leaves.
Needles, the adult leaves, which are green (photosynthetic), bundled in clusters (fascicles) of (1-) 2-5 (-6) needles together, each fascicle produced from a small bud on a dwarf shoot in the axil of a scale leaf. These bud scales often remain on the fascicle as a basal sheath.
The needles persist for 1.5-40 years, depending on species. If a shoot is damaged (e.g. eaten by an animal), the needle fascicles just below the damage will generate a bud which can then replace the lost growth.
Cones of a Pine Tree:
Pines are mostly monoecious, having the male and female cones on the same tree, though a few species are sub-dioecious with individuals predominantly, but not wholly, single-sex.
The male cones are small, typically 1-5 cm long, and only present for a short period (usually in spring, though autumn in a few pines), falling as soon as they have shed their pollen.
The female cones take 1.5-3 years (depending on species) to mature after pollination, with actual fertilization delayed one year. At maturity the cones are 3-60 cm long. Each cone has numerous spirally arranged scales, with two seeds on each fertile scale; the scales at the base and tip of the cone are small and sterile, without seeds.
The seeds are mostly small and winged, and are anemophilous (wind-dispersed), but some are larger and have only a vestigial wing, and are bird-dispersed (see below). At maturity, the cones usually open to release the seeds, but in some of the bird-dispersed species (e.g. Whitebark Pine), the seeds are only released by the bird breaking the cones open.
In others, the fire climax pines (e.g. Monterey Pine, Pond Pine), the seeds are stored in closed ("serotinous") cones for many years until a forest fire kills the parent tree; the cones are also opened by the heat and the stored seeds are then released in huge numbers to re-populate the burnt ground.
Classification of a Pine Tree:
Pines are divided into three subgenera, based on cone, seed and leaf characters:
Subgenus Strobus (white or soft pines). Cone scale without a sealing band. Umbo terminal. Seedwings adnate. One fibrovascular bundle per leaf.
Subgenus Ducampopinus (pinyon, lacebark and bristlecone pines). Cone scale without a sealing band. Umbo dorsal. Seedwings articulate. One fibrovascular bundle per leaf.
Subgenus Pinus (yellow or hard pines).
Cone scale with a sealing band. Umbo dorsal. Seedwings articulate. Two fibrovascular bundles per leaf.
Ecology of a Pine Tree:
Pines grow well in acid soils, some also on calcareous soils; most require good soil drainage, preferring sandy soils, but a few, e.g. Lodgepole Pine, will tolerate poorly drained wet soils.
A few are able to sprout after forest fires, e.g. Canary Island Pine. Some species of pines, e.g. Bishop Pine, need fire to regenerate and their populations slowly decline under fire suppression regimes.
Several species are adapted to extreme conditions imposed by elevation and latitude; see e.g. Siberian Dwarf Pine, Mountain Pine, Whitebark Pine and the bristlecone pines. The pinyon pines and a number of others, notably Turkish Pine, are particularly well adapted to growth in hot, dry semi-desert climates.
The seeds are commonly eaten by birds and squirrels. Some birds, notably the Spotted Nutcracker, Clark's Nutcracker and Pinyon Jay, are of importance in distributing pine seeds to new areas where they can grow.
Pine needles are sometimes eaten by some Lepidoptera species and also the Symphytan species Pine Sawfly.
Uses of a Pine Tree:
Pines are among the most commercially important of tree species, valued for their timber and wood pulp throughout the world. In temperate and tropical regions, they are fast-growing softwoods that will grow in relatively dense stands, their acidic decaying needles inhibiting the sprouting of competing hardwoods. Commercial pines are grown in plantations for timber that is denser, more resinous and thus more durable spruce (Picea). Pine wood is widely used in high-value carpentry items such as furniture, window frames, paneling and floors.
The floors, for example, of the beautiful house of George Washington, Mt. Vernon are wood of a local species, longleaf pine.
The resin of some species is an important source of turpentine.
Many pine species make attractive ornamental plantings for parks and larger gardens, with a variety of dwarf cultivars being suitable for smaller spaces. Pines are also comercially grown and harvested for Christmas trees.
Pine cones, the largest and most durable of all conifer cones are craft favorites. Pines boughs, always appreciated for their pleasant smell and greenery, are frequently cut for winter decorations.
Pine needles serve as food for various Lepidoptera.
The Tree: A Natural History of What Trees Are, How They Live, and Why They Matter
Food uses of a Pine Tree:
The soft, moist, white inner bark (cambium) found clinging to the woody outer bark is edible and very high in vitamins A and C.
It can be eaten raw in slices as a snack or dried and ground up into a powder for use as a thickener in stews, soups, and other foods.
A tea made by steeping young, green pine needles in boiling water (known as "tallstrunt" in Sweden) is high in vitamins A and C as well.
Pine nuts of a Pine Tree:
Pine nuts are the edible seeds of pines (family Pinaceae, genus Pinus). About 20 species of pine produce seeds large enough to be worth harvesting; in other pines the seeds are also edible, but are too small to be of value as a human food.
In Europe, pine nuts come from the Stone Pine (Pinus pinea), which has been cultivated for its nuts for over 6,000 years, and harvested from wild trees for far longer.
The Swiss Pine (Pinus cembra) is also used to a very small extent.
In Asia, two species are widely harvested, Korean Pine (Pinus koraiensis) in northeast Asia (the most important species in international trade), and Chilgoza Pine (Pinus gerardiana) in the western Himalaya.
Four other species, Siberian Pine (Pinus sibirica), Siberian Dwarf Pine (Pinus pumila), Chinese White Pine (Pinus armandii) and Lacebark Pine (Pinus bungeana), are also used to a lesser extent.
In North America, the main species are three of the pinyon pines, Colorado Pinyon (Pinus edulis), Single-leaf Pinyon (Pinus monophylla), and Mexican Pinyon (Pinus cembroides).
The other eight pinyon species are used to a small extent, as are Gray Pine (Pinus sabineana), Torrey Pine (Pinus torreyana) and Sugar Pine (Pinus lambertiana). In the United States, pine nuts are mainly harvested by Native American tribes; in many areas, they have exclusive rights to the harvest.
Pine nuts contain (depending on species) between 10-34% of protein, with Stone Pine having the highest content.[2] They are also a source of dietary fibre. When first extracted from the pine cone, they are covered with a hard shell (seed coat), thin in some species, thick in others.
The nutrition is stored in the large female gametophytic tissue that supports the developing embryo (sporophyte) in the centre. Although a nut in the culinary sense, in the botanical sense pine nuts are seeds; being a gymnosperm, they lack a carpel (fruit) outside.
The shell must be removed before the pine nut can be eaten. Unshelled pine nuts have a long shelf life if kept dry and refrigerated (at 5 to +2 °C); shelled nuts (and unshelled nuts in warm conditions) deteriorate rapidly, becoming rancid within a few weeks or even days in warm humid conditions.
Pine nuts are commercially available in shelled form, but due to poor storage, these rarely have a good flavour and may be already rancid at the time of purchase.
Pine nuts have been eaten in Europe and Asia since the Paleolithic period.
They are frequently added to meat, fish, and vegetable dishes. In Italian they are called pinoli or (rarely) pignoli[4] and are an essential component of Italian pesto sauce.
The pignoli cookie, an Italian specialty confection, is made of almond flour formed into a dough similar to that of a macaroon and then topped with pine nuts. Pine nuts are also featured in the salade landaise of southwestern France.
Pine nut coffee, known as piñón (Spanish for pine nut), is a specialty found in the southwest United States, especially New Mexico; Roasted and lightly salted pine nuts can often be found sold on the side of the road in cities across New Mexico.
it is typically a dark roast coffee and has a deep, nutty flavour. Pine nuts are also used in chocolates and desserts such as baklava. It is also a widely used ingredient in Middle Eastern cuisine, reflected in a diverse range of dishes such as kibbeh, sambusek, ladies' fingers and many others
Throughout Europe and Middle East are used pine nuts from the Pinus pinea or Stone Pine.
They are easily distinguished from the Asian pine nuts for their slenderer shape and more homogeneous flesh. The taste of the Stone Pine nut is finer, somehow more marked and the prices higher. Nowadays, due to the lower price, often, especially in cheaper preparations, Asian pine nuts are used.
Pine nuts can be pressed to extract pine nut oil, which is valued both for its mild, nutty flavour and its health benefits such as appetite suppression and antioxidant action
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