Trees to 20 m tall; trunk to 1.8 m d.b.h. in native range; bark grayish red, irregularly furrowed into large, oblong plates; crown broadly rounded; branchlets orange-brown initially, aging gray-brown or gray, stout, rough; winter buds stout, scales reflexed. Needles very erect, 2(or 3) per bundle, stiff, 10-30 cm × ca. 1 mm, resin canals 2-9, large, touching both endodermis and hypodermis and forming a septum, margin serrulate. Seed cones erect or spreading, shortly pedunculate, pale brown, ovoid-conical, 5-8 cm. Apophyses orange-brown, pyramidal, cross ridged; umbo not spinose.

Cultivated. Guangdong (Zhanjiang Shi) [native to W Cuba]