Is this a Himalayan pine? I got all excited thinking it was a Montezuma pine, but the needles are more drooping and I see Pinus wallichiana, Himalayan pine, is in the running. I didn't notice cones (did I think to look? No, of course not). Maybe if there had been some I'd have noticed??
Thanks, Ron. I had to look up white pine. Wikipedia has a Pinus classification page I'm citing for my reference for next time.
If you are going to keep branching out to trees other than Japanese flowering cherries you might enjoy the Collins Tree Guide. Maybe you know it already.
No, I didn't know it. I've found it in Canada at a pretty good price, so I've ordered it. Thanks, Ron.
Looks good for Pinus wallichiana, though I can't rule out the hybrid P. × schwerinii (P. wallichiana × P. strobus, fairly frequent in cultivation and often mis-labelled as P. wallichiana).
I guess the cones would look different? I can't see any cones when I zoom in on the tree. There are several P. wallichiana cultivars too. Maybe I don't need to know exactly which one this is! Does the hybrid also go by the common name of Himalayan pine?
I found a note about having seen Pinus wallichiana 'Zebrina' at JM Cellars last year. I guess I didn't learn it then. But looking at my photos from last year, the Vancouver tree (first posting in this thread) is more striking in that the branches go all the way to the ground and the needles hang in such tidily clipped-appearing but long clusters. And the mix of green and glaucous needles is attractive too. Maybe that the Vancouver tree is a specimen with lots of room to grow and the Woodinville (JM Cellars) tree was in a forest setting makes a difference. And that photo was taken in May with a lot of new needle growth, whereas the Vancouver photo was just taken in October with all this year's growth adding to the skirt effect. I guess if I'm going to talk about the Woodinville tree, I may as well include the photos.
Yes, the shading would kill the lower branches. You will also recall that many of the conifers there had been limbed up. Specimen is also more advanced in age and development than one you are asking about now. I anticipated M. Frankis would mention hybridity and agree that it might be possible with this example. Otherwise, the default mode is to call such trees here P. wallichiana.
Yes, the cones are different, though (as to be expected with a hybrid and one of its parents), it can be tricky. The hybrid is correctly called Schwerin's Pine, but as mentioned, it is sometimes mislabelled as P. wallichiana.
Collins arrived today. I like it, except it's heavy. I'd never carry that around with me, but it's set up to be useful if I were inclined to do that. Well, I can spend rainy days reading up on conifers, for a start. Thanks for the recommendation, Ron.
