A tall, soft-needled evergreen pine of eastern North America that built early colonial America and once towered above old-growth forests.
Where it grows
Eastern white pine ranges from Newfoundland and Manitoba south through the Appalachians to northern Georgia. It prefers cool, well-drained sandy or loamy soils and was once the dominant canopy tree of the northeastern mixed forests.
How to recognise it
The soft, flexible needles come in bundles of five — easy to remember as W-H-I-T-E spells five letters. They are blue-green and 7 to 13 centimetres long. The cones are long, slender, and curved, often weeping pitch. Mature trees develop a tiered, almost pagoda-like silhouette.
Uses
Colonial Britain reserved the tallest white pines for ship masts under the Broad Arrow policy, an early grievance fuelling the American Revolution. The straight, lightweight, easily worked wood became the standard for clapboards, doors, pattern-making, and matchsticks throughout the 19th century.
Conservation
The introduced white pine blister rust fungus, which alternates with currants and gooseberries, devastated 20th-century stands. Resistant strains and gooseberry control programmes have helped the species recover.
Find more trees by letter
White Pine starts with W and ends with E. Browse other trees along the same letter.
Trees that contain a letter from "White Pine":