Japanese Black Pine

Trees to 30 m tall; trunk to 2 m d.b.h. in native range; bark dull gray when young, aging gray-black, rough and thick, scaly and decidous; crown broadly conical or umbrellalike; 1st-year branchlets pale brown-yellow, glabrous; winter buds silvery white, cylindric-ellipsoid or cylindric, scales fringed at margin. Needles 2 per bundle, dull green, shiny, 6-12 cm × 0.5-2 mm, rigid, stomatal lines present on all surfaces, resin canals 6-11, median, base with persistent sheath, margin serrulate. Seed cones solitary or 2 or 3 together, shortly pedunculate, brown, conical-ovoid or ovoid, 4-6 × 3-4 cm, deciduous. Seed scales ovate-elliptic; apophyses slightly swollen, obviously cross keeled; umbo slightly concave, apex blunt. Seeds obovoid-ellipsoid, 5-7 × 2-3.5 mm; wing gray-brown, 1-1.1 cm. Pollination Apr-May, seed maturity Oct of 2nd year.

Beijing Shi, Hubei (Wuhan Shi, Yingshan Xian), Jiangsu (Nanjing Shi), Jiangxi, Liaoning, Shandong, Yunnan (Kunming Shi), Zhejiang [native to Japan, Korea]

Cultivated in cities, used for afforestation on mountain slopes; to 1400 m.

Pinus thunbergiana Franco.