PA Conifer Profile: Pinus Strobus

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PA Conifer Profile: Pinus strobus

by: Benjamin Failor

Common name: Eastern white pine

White pine is a common conifer in Pennsylvania, and all up and down the east coast, from Newfoundland to far-north Georgia, west to the Great Lakes region and into Minnesota, but barely existing in Illinois and Indiana. Below Pennsylvania, it barely exists outside the Appalachian mountain region.

White pine is easily distinguishable from other pines by its long, thin, flexible pale green-grey needles. The cones are long and slender, and lighter brown than most pine cones, when fresh. When they are fresh, they are covered with globs of pine sap, sometimes small amounts, and sometimes almost completely, to the extent that they appear, from a distance, white.

It can grow to one hundred & fifty feet tall, making it the tallest conifer of the eastern forest.[1]

I could tarry a bit on research done on the phytochemical contents of P. strobus, but for brevity I will say only that both the needles and bark have been proven to be high in nutritional value and deserve high respect in the branch of woodland knowledge relating to survival and, in less bleak terminology, health.