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Pinus pinaster
Maritime pine
Maritime pine, cluster pine (Eng), pino resinero, pino rodeno, pino marítimo, pino negral (Spa), pinastre, pi marítim (Cat), itsas pinua (Baq), piñeiro bravo (Glg), pinheiro-bravo (Por).
Native
“… and I remember another trip / to the Duero lands. / Another trip of yesterday / on Spanish soil / —pines at dawn / between Almazán and Quintana!”
‘Otro viaje’, Antonio MachadoDESCRIPTION
This pine is characterised by the size of its needles and cones, the largest of any Iberian pine. This tree can be up to 40 m tall. Its trunk is usually is somewhat twisted, is dark chestnut brown in colour and has thick bark. The needles are 10-25 cm long and the cones are elongated, measuring 8-22 cm in length by 5-8 cm in width. The pine nuts are very small and, when the ripe cone opens, they exit using a membranous wing that facilitates their dispersion by the wind.
ECOLOGY
This species forms pure or mixed forests on acidic soils, and can withstand stony substrates and drought conditions very well. We find it from sea level up to altitudes of 1700 m.
DISTRIBUTION
It lives around the western Mediterranean region and is the most widespread tree on the Iberian Peninsula, both naturally occurring and because of the fact it is cultivated, as well as being used to stabilise land suffering serious erosion. The pine forest of La Jurisdiction, in San Lorenzo de El Escorial (Madrid), was the first area that was reforested with this objective. An example of its use for resin extraction is the Tierra de Pinares (Land of the Pine Forests), a vast expanse between the provinces of Segovia and Valladolid.
