Sign 12
Pine, Eastern White
Pinus strobus
- Interest:
- Evergreen
- Family:
- Pine (Pinaceae)
- Form:
- Tree, Coniferous Evergreen
Tree
Description: The Eastern White Pine is an evergreen conifer, native to Canada and the northeastern US. Its soft needles grow in bundles of five, and Bald Eagles often nest in mature trees. These trees can grow up to 150 feet tall and live for hundreds of years.
The Eastern White Pine helped build early America, with towering trunks prized as ship masts for the Royal Navy. Native Americans brewed its vitamin C-rich needles into tea and used its resin in healing salves. Its soft, workable wood remains prized for furniture, carving, and crafts.
Photo: Agnieszka Kwiecień, Nova, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
More plant info
What to look for
Count the needles: white pine is the only native pine in New England with needles in bundles of five. They are soft and blue-green. The branches grow in level tiers, one tier a year, which gives older trees their layered, windswept outline.
Where it comes from
Eastern white pine grows from Newfoundland west to Minnesota and south along the Appalachians to northern Georgia. In mixed forests it often rises above the hardwood canopy. Red crossbills, squirrels and many other animals feed on its seeds.
People and white pine
The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy holds the white pine as its Tree of Peace, the central symbol of the union of its nations. Colonial New England reserved the tallest pines for Royal Navy masts.
Sources
Guided tours of the arboretum are free, by appointment. Text Mary at 978-887-4202.