Pine identification

Discussion in 'Plants: Identification' started by leaftye, Nov 24, 2007.

  1. leaftye

    leaftye Member

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    The folks in OH told me this was Torrey Pine (Pinus torreyana), but I believe this is something else. The male spore cones on the Torrey Pine are large and at the end of needle clusters, and mine are smaller and at the base of the need clusters.

    I've attached images for your review. If pictures can be done differently, either resized, or additional pictures, please don't hesitate to ask. If you want to view the full size 9 megapixel images, I have them here: http://picasaweb.google.com/leaftye/Plants
     

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  2. leaftye

    leaftye Member

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  3. Ron B

    Ron B Paragon of Plants 10 Years

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  4. leaftye

    leaftye Member

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    I wish that site had a picture of a cone.


    One thing that's making me uncertain is a picture on my schools website that shows something that looks like a cone on the tip...or it could be a flower....which is strange to me because these trees already have male and female cones.

    Do you know what the thing on the tip is in the attached picture? This picture is not mine.

    Here's the page for this tree from the OH department at my school.

    http://www.cuyamaca.edu/oh170/Thumbnail_Pages/Pinus_canariensis.asp
     

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  5. Ron B

    Ron B Paragon of Plants 10 Years

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    Male flowers (strobili). These generate pollen when mature, which blows onto the less numerous female strobili. The dried up sagging ones in the second picture are what these male strobili will look like later, when spent.
     
  6. Michael F

    Michael F Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    Pinus roxburghii (Chir Pine), from the Himalaya.

    Foliage similar to P. canariensis (a close relative), but the prominent cone scales exclude that. P. torreyana has much coarser (thicker), greyer needles.

    Male (pollen) cones.

    Edit: just looked at the hi-res pics at the link. Definitely P. roxburghii.
     
  7. leaftye

    leaftye Member

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    Michael, I'm very close to totally agreeing with you. The big question I have is still concerning those male pollen cones. The pictures on my school's website, the cones are near the tip, but in the pictures I took, the cones are behind the needle cluster. Is that because the cones in my pictures are old, the needles have grown past it and most of the cones have fallen off?
     
  8. Michael F

    Michael F Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    That's because they are newly growing; if you look at the tip of the shoot in the school photo, there's an unexpanded bud there, which will produce a shoot with needles out beyond the pollen cones over the subsequent month or two. That photo was probably taken in March or April; yours are November after the year's growth has been completed.
     

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