Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus). A native conifer that I often see up here on my mountain. It grows in the woods and we’ve planted and grown a few as Christmas trees. It’s a favorite of some as a Christmas tree, with it’s soft needles but I much prefer the very stiff and sharp needled, rigidly branched, but not user friendly Colorado Blue Spruce. In the northeast the Eastern White Pine is known to be the tallest of trees. They can reach heights of up to 150 feet, and can live 200 years with a maximum age sometimes surpassing 450 years.

White Pine is found in extreme southeastern Canada and the northeastern US down through the Appalachian Mountains into northernmost Georgia. It’s a tree that likes to have full sun but will get by with a daily dose of four hours of direct, unfiltered sunlight. Its needles are in bundles, called fascicles. Each of those fascicles contains 5 needles. Those needles generally range from three to five inches long.

The pinecones of Eastern White Pines that are generally noticed are the female cones. They are 3 to 8 inches long, cylindrical with a slight curve, hang downward from branches and contain the tree’s seeds. These cones mature in 2 to 3 years and after shedding their seeds the cone will drop to the ground.