Durable pine

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Durable pine
Long-lived pine (Pinus longaeva) in southern Nevada

Long-lived pine ( Pinus longaeva ) in southern Nevada

Systematics
Class : Coniferopsida
Order : Conifers (Coniferales)
Family : Pine family (Pinaceae)
Subfamily : Pinoideae
Genre : Pine ( Pinus )
Type : Durable pine
Scientific name
Pinus longaeva
DKBailey

The Durable pine ( Pinus longaeva ), also Durable awns pine or Western awns pine called, is a plant from the genus of pine trees ( Pinus ) within the family of the Pinaceae (Pinaceae). Until about 1970 it was considered a local variety of the Common Spruce Pine ( Pinus aristata ) and was then separated as a separate species Pinus longaeva . In the Patriarch Grove in the White Mountains in California are 17 copies of longevity pine, the 4000 year old are. One of them, the age of which was determined by counting the annual rings in a small drill core , was around 4900 years old. However, this tree has now died; as are most of the trees there, which are over 4000 years old. The oldest living tree is currently 3,622 years old.

Description and ecology

tribe
Branch with needles
Male cones
Female cones
Branch with ripe (left) and immature (right) cones

Appearance

The long-lived pine is an evergreen tree that grows to heights of 5 to 20 meters and diameters of up to 1.5 meters at chest height , in exceptional cases up to 3.5 meters. The shape and height of the trunk depend heavily on the location. This species maintains an upright growth habit even near the tree line. Young trees grow straight and have short, slender branches. Old trees that are exposed to wind or severe drought usually stop growing at 5 to 10 meters and only grow in size. Extreme diameters at chest height are likely achieved through the growing together of several trunks. The drooping, curved branches pointing in different directions are typical of the species. Long shoots are between 0.8 and 7.2 inches long. Many side shoots arise from the terminal buds of the short shoots .

bark

The gray to reddish brown bark varies greatly in both color and structure. The bark only covers a fraction of the trunk, especially in extreme locations. As a result, only part of the crown is regularly supplied and is therefore green.

Wood

The reddish tinted wood is resinous and relatively hard. Occasionally, resin canals appear in the wood rays . The annual rings are easy to see. The wood cannot be distinguished either anatomically or in appearance from that of the awning pine ( Pinus aristata ) or that of the foxtail pine ( Pinus balfouriana ).

Needles

The 2 to 4 centimeters long needles are five, rarely four, close together on short shoots and are close to the branch. The 2 to 4 centimeters long needles are shiny dark green in color, relatively stiff, have a blunt tip. There are several rows of stomata on the underside of the needle . Colorless resin droplets with a smooth surface are seldom formed. The needles remain on the tree between 25 and 30 years, in extreme cases up to 38 years. A possible cause for such a high needle age is the annual renewal of the phloem of the needle bundle or the thickness of the cuticle wax layer, which does not decrease with the age of the needle, but is always between 5 and 9 micrometers thick.

Flowers, cones and seeds

The reddish, 10 to 12 millimeter long, male cones dust from July to early August. The female cones are blue. The initially deep purple, spindle-shaped cones are 5.5 to 8.5 inches long and widest at their base. A small part of the population forms green cones. The cone scales are heavily resinified and have a navel, which ends in a 4 to 6 millimeter long, awn-like extension. At the base of the tenon, these extensions are shorter or missing entirely. Even trees that are 3,000 years old still form cones.

The pale brown, slightly marbled, 6 to 8 millimeter long seeds ripen in late September / early October and are winged. The wing is difficult to separate from the seed body. The seeds of the long-lived pine, which are actually designed to spread wind ( anemochory ), are mainly spread by the pine jay ( Nucifraga columbiana ) on high elevations exposed to the wind .

Similar species

  • The otherwise very similar awn pine ( Pinus aristata ) should not be confused with its characteristic white resin flakes on needles and cones.
  • The foxtail pine ( Pinus balfouriana ) has practically no awning extensions on the cone scales.
Distribution area

Distribution and location

The long-lived pine occurs in different, isolated stands in California , Utah and Nevada and grows there in the mountainous regions. The distribution area extends to the west to the White Mountains in eastern California, to the northeast to the Sowers Canyon in Utah, to the east to White Pine County and to the south to Clark County in Nevada. Its occurrence in the White Mountains is world famous, as there are several specimens that are over 4000 years old.

The Bristlecone Pine is a light tree species that occurs and at altitudes 2200-3700 meters there is often the tree line forms. It usually grows on ridges and steep slopes and is completely hardy. The durable pine is sensitive to side pressure and shading. The annual precipitation averages 300 mm. In the warmest months of the very short growing season, the monthly mean is barely above 10 ° C. Above all, limestone and dolomite weathered soils as well as granite , quartzite and sandstone are settled. Winter storms often occur in the natural location.

The long-lived pine forms clear, pure stands at the tree line. It occurs together with the Nevada stone pine ( Pinus flexilis ) on the more nutrient-rich and better water-supplied soils at the lower end of their altitude range . It only reaches an extremely old age on shallow, nutrient-poor, very dry and strongly wind-exposed locations with almost no soil vegetation and competing tree species. At these altitudes, this species is not attacked by any pests.

ecology

The pine jay ( Nucifraga columbiana ) collects the seeds and buries them in holes about 30 centimeters deep. The only way to germinate the seeds in locations exposed to wind is by burying them, as seeds lying on the surface dry out or are blown away. Seedlings from such clusters often form groups of up to eleven stems. The seedlings grow so densely that later stem fusions are inevitable.

Systematics

The species Pinus longaeva was spun off from the Awn Pine ( Pinus aristata ) in 1971 by Dana K. Bailey due to differences in needle and cone morphology as well as chemotaxic differences. She has published these results in 1971 in the Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden , Volume 57, page 243. A synonym of Pinus longaeva D.K.Bailey is Pinus aristata var. Longaeva (DKBailey) Little .

use

The long-lived pine has no economic significance. Since it is able to colonize highly exposed extreme locations and form the tree line there, it is of great ecological importance.

In 1964, geography student Donald Rusk Currey in Nevada had a specimen felled (with 4950 annual rings, as it turned out), the remains of which now serve as the standard for the dendrochronological annual ring tables. These are also an essential calibration aid for the radiocarbon method . The specimen felled in Nevada is called " Prometheus ". The Bristlecone-Pines-Chronology is based on the investigation of this tree species .

swell

literature

  • Horst Kramer : Bristlecone Pines - the oldest trees in the world , in: Der Forst- und Holzwirt , 38th year, issue 2/1983, pp. 32–35.
  • Schütt, Weisgerber, Schuck, Lang, Stimm, Roloff: Lexicon of Conifers . Nikol, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-933203-80-5 , p. 433-440 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rocky Mountain Tree Ring Research: Database of ancient trees
  2. ↑ Schütt, Weisgerber, Schuck, Lang, Stimm, Roloff: Lexicon of conifers . Nikol, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 3-933203-80-5 , p. 435-436 .
  3. ↑ a b Schütt, Weisgerber, Schuck, Lang, Stimm, Roloff: Lexicon of conifers . Nikol, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 3-933203-80-5 , p. 438 .
  4. ↑ a b c d e Schütt, Weisgerber, Schuck, Lang, Stimm, Roloff: Lexicon of conifers . Nikol, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 3-933203-80-5 , p. 438-440 .
  5. ↑ Schütt, Weisgerber, Schuck, Lang, Stimm, Roloff: Lexicon of conifers . Nikol, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 3-933203-80-5 , p. 436-437 .
  6. ↑ a b Schütt, Weisgerber, Schuck, Lang, Stimm, Roloff: Lexicon of conifers . Nikol, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 3-933203-80-5 , p. 437 .
  7. ↑ a b Schütt, Weisgerber, Schuck, Lang, Stimm, Roloff: Lexicon of conifers . Nikol, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 3-933203-80-5 , p. 434-435 .
  8. ↑ Pinus longaeva at Tropicos.org. Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, Retrieved April 24, 2019.
  9. ↑ Christopher J. Earle, 2019 data sheet at The Gymnosperm Database .
  10. ↑ Schütt, Weisgerber, Schuck, Lang, Stimm, Roloff: Lexicon of conifers . Nikol, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 3-933203-80-5 , p. 434 .

Web links

Commons : Long-lived pine ( Pinus longaeva )  - album with pictures, videos and audio files