20 Interesting Facts about The Eastern White Pine Tree
The eastern white pine tree is a beautiful tree that is plentiful throughout the eastern part of the North American continent, including the United States. The eastern part of the country has a climate that is cooler than other parts and has more humidity, which allows this tree to thrive. According to the University of Maine, the Eastern White Pine tree is also known as the Pinus strobus Sylvania. Read on for 20 more interesting facts about this beautiful pine tree.
1. Soil Variety
The eastern white pine tree grows very well in an array of different soils. This means it can grow and thrive in several different areas of the eastern United States, including Minnesota, Manitoba, and even the Appalachian Mountains and the extreme southern portion of Georgia. It can even be found in Newfoundland.
2. Grows Fast
The Eastern White Pine tree boasts a very fast growth rate compared to other tree species within its same habitat range. This type of tree is even being studied for its economic as well as ecological importance in our environment. It can sometimes adversely affect the health of the public, though, since it can be a huge source of pollen during allergy season.
3. Long Life and Tall Tree
This tree can live for 200 years or longer and with age, the eastern white pine tree can grow to heights of about 150 feet and over three feet in diameter. The straight trunk and size of this tree have made it a very important resource when it comes to lumber for construction. In forests with a variety of different types of trees, the Eastern White Pine tree will tower over many others, even the large broadleaf hardwoods.
4. Pretty Enough to be a Christmas Tree
This beautiful tree is also very popular as an ornamental tree and many people use it as a traditional Christmas tree since it is shaped like a cone and has softer needles, which makes a pretty nice environment while decorating.
5. Attracts Wildlife
When it comes to the ecosystem, the Eastern White Pine tree offers a shelter of sorts for many inhabitants of the forests throughout the country and other countries. From deer and squirrels to a variety of different bird species, this tree is very attractive to wildlife, especially those that want to feed on the seeds of this tree.
6. Stately Tree
The Eastern White Pine Tree is the state tree of the state of Maine. It is also very popular in the Sylvania Wilderness of Michigan and is a native tree to North America. While it can grow and thrive in a variety of climates and various types of soil, it prefers soils that are either well-drained or sandy, along with more humid climates. It can still, however, grow and thrive in mixed forests and even in boggy areas as well as the rockier soil of the highlands.
7. Eastern White Pines Have Been Around for Decades
It was the Eastern White Pine forests that originally covered much of the north-eastern and north-central areas of the United States. In today’s world, only about one percent of the oldest trees still remain due to extensive logging that happened between the 18th and 20th centuries. There are some older trees that have been around for centuries in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, since it is a protected area and those forests are known as virgin strands.
According to the Eastern Native Tree Society, other protected areas include the Huron Mountains, Algonquin Provincial Park, Quetico Provincial Park, and Algoma Highlands in Ontario, Canada, Porcupine Mountains State Park, Estivant Pines, and Sylvania Wilderness Area in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and the Hartwick Pines State Park in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan as well as Menominee Indian Reservation in Wisconsin.
There are several other areas that boast virgin strands of this magnificent tree, including the Lost 40 Scientific and Natural Area (SNA) and Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota, Cook Forest State Park, Hearts Content Scenic Area, Anders Run Natural Area in Pennsylvania, the Linville Gorge Wilderness in North Carolina, and fittingly due to its name, the White Pines State Park that is located in Illinois.
8. Small Groves
There are smaller groves of the Eastern White Pine tree as well as individual trees that are found across the United States, including in Adirondack Park in New York as well as in Ordway Pines, Maine, Ice Glen, Massachusetts, the Mohawk Trail State Forest, and the William Cullen Bryant Homestead in Massachusetts, just to name a few.
9. Other Countries
In addition to Canada, where many eastern white pine trees can be found, you can also locate some in the Outer Eastern Carpathians subdivision of the Carpathian Mountains in the Czech Republic as well as in southern Poland. These trees have grown there from seeds left behind by the ornamental trees that are used in gardens, landscaping, or as Christmas trees.
10. The Leaves are Bundled
The leaves of the eastern white pine tree, which are actually pine needles, grow in bundles, which are also referred to as fascicles, and normally contain about five needles covered in a sheath. They are very flexible needles that are bluish green in color and about two to five inches long. They usually stay on the tree for about 18 months, from the spring of one year to the fall time of the next year before they fall off.
11. The Cones are Skinny
The counts of the eastern white pine tree are very skinny, measuring in at only about three and one-quarter inches to six and one-quarter inches. They are very rarely ever longer than that. The cones are only about one and one-half inches to two inches wide and are covered in scales. The cones are a rounded cylinder shape with a tip that can flex slightly. The seeds from the cones are about three to five inches long and only about three-quarters of an inch wide. The seeds are dispersed throughout forests and other areas by the wind and the cone production reaches its peak every three to five years.
12. Self-Fertilization
The eastern white pine trees are able to self-fertilize but the seeds that are produced in this manner tend to be stunted in growth and many times malformed and weak.
13. Old Age
Most eastern white pine trees only live to the age of around 200 to 250 years old, but some are able to live more than 400 years. It has been reported that researchers have found that a tree growing near the Syracuse, New York area was dated back 458 years during the late 1980s and there are even trees in Wisconsin and Michigan that have been dated to be about 500 years old.
14. Measuring the Circumference
The Eastern White Pine has the record of being the tallest tree in North America. Pre-colonial stands of this tree boast some trees that are more than 230 feet tall, but there is no way to accurately document the height of trees from these eras, but it is believed this tree has reached those levels of height occasionally throughout the years. The trunks of these trees are usually about 990 cubic feet but some have reached as much as 1,400 cubic feet.
15. Very Tall
The Eastern White Pine tree normally grows a little over three feet each year between the ages of 15 years old and 45 years old. After that, the growth usually slows down and the tree reaches an average height of about 188 feet tall, according to the Native Tree Society (NTS). It is believed that there are only three locations in the southeastern part of the United States and one in the northeastern area that boasts trees that are 180 feet tall.
16. Tallest Trees
In today’s world, the tallest eastern white pine trees can be found in the southern area of the Appalachian Mountains. There is even one tree that is referred to as the “Boogerman Pine” That is located in the Cataloochee Valley of Great Smoky Mountains National Park and measures of about 207 feet tall. This is the tallest tree that has been accurately measured in the United States, east of the Rocky Mountain area. Climbers were able to drop tape downward after climbing to the top of the tree to be able to measure its height. There are also very tall trees located in the state of Michigan at the Hartwick Pines State Park. They measure between 140 feet tall and 157 feet tall.
17. Diameter Matters Too
The diameter of most eastern white pine trees is normally about three feet around 25 feet wide, but there are white pine trees in both the SE and northeastern areas of the United States that sport diameters of more than 4 feet, although it is rare. It is believed that during the colonial era of the United States, some virgin eastern white pine trees boasted a circumference of about eight feet around.
18. Insects and Diseases
As is the problem with all trees, they can become infected and diseased by various insects and other issues in our environment. The eastern white pine tree is able to resist fire to a certain level and are even able to re-seed and grow in burned-out areas of forests. Those trees usually have no branches on the lower half of the trunk. Many insects can take over a tree as well as pests in rodents, including squirrels, deer, and others. Some eastern white pine trees end up being damaged or killed by fungus-type diseases, such as the white pine weevil, also known as Pissodes strobi, and white pine blister rust, also referred to as Cronartium ribicola.
19. The Effects of Blister Rust
Blister rust can affect entire groves of mature eastern white pine trees and often killed up to 80 percent of the trees during the early part of the 20th century. It is a fungus that has to spend a large part of its life cycle on a variety of hosts of the Ribes genus, including the native gooseberry or wild currant. Many foresters believe that all of these host plants should be removed from the forest and kept away from the eastern white pine trees to attempt to eliminate the disease of blister rust. A campaign has even been launched to require land owners in the commercial pine growing areas to uproot and kill all wild currant plants as well as native gooseberry plants to try to eliminate this deadly disease.
20. Uses of the Eastern White Pine Tree
The eastern white pine tree has a variety of uses, including timber and lumber for construction projects. During the 19th century, it was common for Midwestern white pine forests to be harvested for this very reason. It is estimated that a quarter million of eastern white pine trees were cut down and sent to lumber yards just in Chicago in only a single year. It is also believed that all the way back in 1620 that trees were imported to England by a man named Captain George Weymouth, who purposely planted the trees as a timber crop but lost out when many were affected with blister rust disease and died.
There are many older growth eastern white pine trees in forests throughout the United States as well as Canada that boast highly desired wood that do not have knots, which makes these huge boards very appealing to the construction and housing industries. The pine is used for furniture, flooring, and even paneling. Pine was always the favorite tree of loggers, since the pine logs could be processed through a lumber mill within a year of being cut down. Other hardwood trees, such as maple, cherry, oak, and ash, must be cut into one inch thick boards immediately after they fall or large cracks will develop which will then render their wood completely useless.
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