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Pinus halepensis
Aleppo pine
Aleppo pine, Jerusalem pine (Eng), pino carrasco, pino de Alepo (Spa), pi blanc (Cat), Aleppo pinua (Baq), pinheiro-de-Alepo, pinheiro francés (Por).
Native
“The aleppo pine, skinny and lanky looking, happy with poor and degraded soils, is so frequent throughout the Mediterranean basin…”
‘Plants. Loves and vegetable civilisations’, Jean-Marie PeltDESCRIPTION
A tree that can be up to 20 m tall, often with a twisted trunk, which has greyish or whitish bark and twigs. The leaves develop in groups of two and are very thin and elongated. They are acicular and generally 6-10 cm long and up to 1 mm wide. The cones are small, around 4-8 cm long, and are attached by a more or less thick stalk that is 1-2 cm long. The pine nuts are also small and have a wing that aids their dispersion once the ripe cone opens. However, many cones from previous years remain on the branches of adult specimens, a characteristic that helps us differentiate this species from its relatives.
ECOLOGY
This pine needs a Mediterranean climate, with a lot of sunshine and no excessive rain or low temperatures. It grows well on dry slopes, preferably on limestones or gypsums close to the coast. We can find it from sea level up to 1000 m, although in some mountain ranges in the south it reaches altitudes of 1600 m.
DISTRIBUTION
This tree occurs naturally in the Mediterranean region. It is most abundant in the eastern half of the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands, where it is the pine that defines the landscape along many parts of the coast, although it does penetrate into the interior through valleys and lower regions. Even so, it has been used for reforestation in other provinces and its range has become more diffuse.
