Pitch pine (Pinus rigida)

Description: Native to eastern United States. Has been shown to spread aggressively into sand dunes in Michigan.

Habit: Straight or medium sized tree that can reach a height of 80 feet.

Leaves: Evergreen needles, 2.5-5 inches long, 3 twisted needles per fascicle, yellow-green to green in color.

Stems: Twigs are orange-brown, stout, buds narrowly ovoid becoming light gray-brown. Bark is dark and scaly developing red-brown or yellow-brown thick flat plates with deep furrows.

Flowers: Monoecious; male flowers are cylindrical, red to yellow in color, borne in large clusters at twig tips. Female flowers are yellow to red in color with small, curved scales.

Fruit and seeds: Cones are ovoid, 2-4 inches long, light brown in color, umbo has a short, stout prickle.

Habitat: Native to the eastern United States. Can be found in dunes and pine barrens.

Reproduction: By seed and vegetatively by basal and epicormic sprouting.

Similar species: Loblolly pine (Pinus taeda), shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata), Pond pine (Pinus serotina), Table Mountain pine (Pinus pungens)

Monitoring and rapid response: Individual seedlings can be hand pulled.

Credits: The information provided in this factsheet was gathered from Virginia Tech Dendrology and University of Michigan Herbarium.

Individual species images that appear with a number in a black box are courtesy of the Bugwood.org network (http://www.invasive.org).Individual photo author credits may not be included due to the small display size of the images and subsequent difficulty of reading the provided text. All other images appear courtesy of Google (http://images.google.com).

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