Virginia pine

Trees to 18m; trunk to 0.5m diam., straight or contorted to erect or leaning; crown irregularly rounded or flattened. Bark gray-brown with irregular, scaly-plated ridges, on upper sections of trunk reddish, scaly. Branches spreading-ascending to spreading-descending; twigs slender, red- or purple-tinged, often glaucous, aging red-brown to gray, rough. Buds ovoid to cylindric, red-brown, 0.6--1cm, resinous or not resinous; scale margins white-fringed. Leaves 2 per fascicle, spreading or ascending, persisting 3--4 years, 2--8cm ´ 1--1.5mm, strongly twisted, deep to pale yellow-green, all surfaces with inconspicuous stomatal lines, margins serrulate, apex narrowly acute; sheath 0.4--1cm, base persistent. Pollen cones ellipsoid-cylindric, 10--20mm, red-brown or yellow. Seed cones maturing in 2 years, shedding seeds soon thereafter, persisting to 5 years, symmetric, lance-ovoid or lanceoloid before opening, ovoid when open, 3-- 7(--8)cm, dull red-brown, nearly sessile or on stalks to 1cm, scales rigid, with strong purple-red or purple-brown border on adaxial surface distally; apophyses slightly thickened, slightly elongate; umbo central, low-pyramidal, with slender, stiff prickle. Seeds compressed-obovoid, oblique apically; body 4--7mm, pale brown, mottled darker; wing narrow, to 20mm. 2 n =24.

Dry uplands, sterile sandy or shaly barrens, old fields, and lower mountains; 0--900m; Ala., Del., Ga., Ind., Ky., Md., Miss., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Ohio, Pa., S.C., Tenn., Va., W.Va.

Pinus virginiana is weedy and fire successional and often forms large stands. It is mostly too small and too profusely branched to be valued except as pulpwood.