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Pine family (Pinaceae)
Evergreen tree of heights (15)25-35(48) m and breast-height diameter of 1.5 m. Can live to be 500 years old. Bark thick, fissured, brown-grey, but upper trunk red-green. Bark flakes off in thin patches. Needles 4-10 cm long, in twos, grey-green in colour and twisted along the axis. Species monoecious. Flowers of one gender or the other, wind-pollinated. Cones 2.5-7 cm long, brown-grey, matte, opening in spring of their third year. Seeds small, grey or variegated and winged. Flowers in May.
A species of broad amplitude as regards habitat. This is the main species of pine and oak-pine forest. Admixture species in other kinds of coniferous forest and more nutrient-poor broadleaved forest. Young stems and male inflorescences edible. A medicinal plant.
Descriptions devised by the team at the Independent Department of Forest Botany, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, i.e. L. Witkowska-Żuk, K. Marciszewska, W. Ciurzycki, A. Obidziński and P. Zaniewski
