Pinus peuce Macedonian pine Belfast Botanic Gardens

Friends of Belfast Botanic Gardens

Tree of the month series - this series of short articles about trees in the Belfast Botanic Gardens is compiled by members of the Friends group and Gardens staff. We aim to build up to a comprehensive archive of trees in Belfast Botanic Gardens. Each article illustrates a tree growing in Belfast Botanic Gardens together with information from a range of sources. Where possible we will give the tree tag number - these are the small aluminium discs, usually fixed on the tree trunk, 2 to 3m above ground level.

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Tag 706

location:

54deg 34.953N

5deg 55.871W

Tree of the Month, February 2012

Macedonian pine

Pinus peuce

Jon Pilcher

The Macedonian pine is one of the soft pine group. It comes from the SW Balkan mountains and was introduced into cultivation in1864. The needles are in bunches of 5 and are very thin, but not as drooping as those of the Bhutan pine (Pinus wallichiana) which is also present in Belfast Botanic Gardens. The cones are lax, elongated and each scale has a distinctive knob at the apex. All the scales are incurved (unlike the Weymouth pine where some of the scales curve outwards). The Belfast Botanic Gardens specimen is beside the sunken path in the rock garden area.


Pinus peuce, Macedonian pine. Belfast Botanic Gardens	Pinus peuce. Bark

Pinus peuce. Needles in bunches of five	Pinus peuce. Cones