Red Pine
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| Red Pine Conservation status: Secure | ||||||||||||||||
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 Red Pine in Itasca State Park, Minnesota | ||||||||||||||||
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The Red Pine Pinus resinosa is a pine native to northeastern North America, occurring from Newfoundland west to southeast Manitoba, and south to northern Illinois and Pennsylvania, with a small outlying population in the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia.
It is a tree characterized by tall, straight growth in a variety of habitats. It usually ranges from 20-35 m in height and 1 m in trunk diameter, but can exceed that in optimal conditions, exceptionally reaching 43 m tall. The crown is conical in young trees, 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.
Pinus_resinosa_cone.JPG
The leaves are needle-like, dark green, in fascicles of two, 12-18 cm long, and brittle. The cones are symmetrical ovoid, 4-6 cm long, 2.5 cm broad and green before maturity, ripening nut-brown and opening to 4-5 cm broad, the scales without a prickle and almost stalkless.
This species is intolerant of shade, but does well in windy sites; it grows best in well-drained soil. The wood is commercially valuable in forestry for timber and paper pulp, and the tree is also used for landscaping.
In the past it was occasionally known by the confusing name "Norway Pine", even though it is native to North America, and not Norway.
The Red Pine is the state tree of Minnesota.pl:Sosna czerwona