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Pinus strobus, commonly called the eastern white pine, northern white pine, white pine, Weymouth pine (British), and soft pine is a large pine native to eastern North America. It occurs from Newfoundland, Canada, west through the Great Lakes region to southeastern Manitoba and Minnesota, United States, and south along the Appalachian Mountains and upper Piedmont to northernmost Georgia and very rare in some of the higher elevations in northeastern Alabama. It is considered rare in Indiana.
The Haudenosaunee maintain the tree as the central symbol of their multinational confederation, calling it the "Tree of Peace", where the Seneca use the name o’sóä’ and the Mohawk people call it onerahtase'ko:wa. Within the Wabanaki Confederacy, the Mi'kmaq use the term guow to name the tree, both the Maliseet and Passamaquoddy call it kuw or kuwes, and the Abenaki use the term kowa.
It is known as the "Weymouth pine" in the United Kingdom, (2025). 9781402738753, Sterling. ISBN 9781402738753 after Captain George Weymouth of the British Royal Navy, who brought its seeds to England from Maine in 1605.
Fossilized white pine leaves and pollen have been discovered by Brian Axsmith, a paleobotanist at the University of South Alabama, in the Gulf Coastal Plain, where the tree no longer occurs.
Eastern white pine forests originally covered much of north-central and northeastern North America. Only 1% of the old-growth forests remain after the extensive logging operations from the 18th century to early 20th century.
Old-growth forests, or virgin stands, are protected in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Other protected areas with known virgin forests, as confirmed by the Eastern Native Tree Society, include Algonquin Provincial Park, Quetico Provincial Park, Algoma Highlands in Ontario, and Sainte-Marguerite River Old Forest in Quebec, Canada; Estivant Pines, Huron Mountains, Porcupine Mountains State Park, and Sylvania Wilderness Area in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, United States; Hartwick Pines State Park in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan; Menominee Indian Reservation in Wisconsin; Lost 40 Scientific and Natural Area (SNA) and Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota; White Pines State Park, Illinois; Cook Forest State Park, Hearts Content Scenic Area, and Anders Run Natural Area in Pennsylvania; and the Linville Gorge Wilderness in North Carolina, United States.
Small groves or individual specimens of old-growth eastern white pines are found across the range of the species in the USA, including in Ordway Grove, Maine; Ice Glen, Massachusetts; and Adirondack Park, New York. Many sites with conspicuously large specimens represent advanced old-field ecological succession. The tall stands in Mohawk Trail State Forest and William Cullen Bryant Homestead in Massachusetts are examples.
As an introduced species, P. strobus is now naturalizing in the Outer Western Carpathians subdivision of the Carpathian Mountains in Czech Republic and southern Poland. It has spread from specimens planted as .
The seed cones are slender, long (rarely longer than that) and broad when open, and have scales with a rounded apex and slightly reflexed tip, often resinous. The are long, with a slender wing, and are dispersed by wind. Cone production peaks every 3 to 5 years.
The branches are spaced about every 18 inches on the trunk with five or six branches appearing like spokes on a wagon wheel. Eastern white pine is self-fertile, but seeds produced this way tend to result in weak, stunted, and malformed seedlings. Mature trees are often 200–250 years old, and some live over 400 years. A tree growing near Syracuse, New York, was dated to 458 years old in the late 1980s and trees in Michigan and Wisconsin were dated to roughly 500 years old.
“In its native habitats this pine grows to very large dimensions. We have measured many of them as they lay felled on the ground and taking a number of them we found the stems average 150 feet long by 2 feet 9 inches diameter at 5 feet up from the bottom. This may be taken as an average of the size of the trees as they stand in their native parts ; but we have found many of them that measured 210 feet long with stems from 5 to 7 feet in diameter at 4 feet up from the bottom and on counting the annular layers on the stumps from which they were cut we found them to range between 350 and 425 which may be taken as representing the years of their age.”
Even greater heights and diameters have been reported in numerous early town and county histories, lumber journals, and popular, but unverifiable, accounts such as Robert Pike's Tall Trees, Tough Men.
Total trunk volumes of the largest specimens are around , with some past giants possibly reaching . Photographic analysis of giants suggests volumes closer to .
The southern Appalachian Mountains have the most locations and the tallest trees in the present range of P. strobus. One survivor is a specimen known as the "Boogerman Pine" in the Cataloochee Valley of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. At tall, it is the tallest accurately measured tree in North America east of the Rocky Mountains, though this conflicts with citations for Liriodendron tulipifera. It has been climbed and measured by tape drop by the NTS. Before Hurricane Opal broke its top in October 1995, Boogerman Pine was tall, as determined by Will Blozan and Robert Leverett using ground-based measurements.
The tallest specimens in Hartwick Pines State Park in Michigan are tall.
In the northeastern USA, eight sites in four states currently have trees over tall, as confirmed by the NTS. The Cook Forest State Park of Pennsylvania has the most numerous collection of eastern white pines in the Northeast, with 110 trees measuring that height or more. The park's "Longfellow Pine" is the tallest presently living eastern white pine in the Northeast, at tall, as determined by tape drop.Luthringer, D.J. 2009. Big Trees of Cook Forest. Pennsylvania Forests 100(3):8-12. The Mohawk Trail State Forest of Massachusetts has 83 trees measuring or more tall, of which six exceed . The "Jake Swamp Tree" located there is tall.Jake Swamp Tree: 51.54m in August 2008.The Jake Swamp Tree was climbed and measured by tape drop in November 1998 and October 2001. It was scheduled to be climbed and measured a third time in November 2008. The NTS maintains precise measurements of it. A private property in Claremont, New Hampshire, has approximately 60 specimens that are at least , with the tallest being .
Unconfirmed reports from the colonial era gave diameters of virgin white pines of up to .
Today, native wild currants are relatively rare plants in New England, and planting wild currants or wild gooseberries is strongly discouraged, or even illegal in some jurisdictions. As an alternative, new strains of commercial currants have been developed that are highly resistant to white pine blister rust. Mortality in white pines from rust is only about 3% today.
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The white pine had aesthetic appeal to contemporary naturalists such as Henry David Thoreau ("There is no finer tree.") Beyond that, it had logging. It was considered "the most sought and most widely utilized of the various forest growths of the northwest." Descriptions of its uses are quoted below from a 19th-century source:
The species was imported in 1620 to England by Captain George Weymouth, who planted it for a timber crop, but had little success because of white pine blister rust disease.
Old-growth pine in the Americas, of various Pinus species, was a highly desired wood since huge, knot-free boards were the rule rather than the exception. Pine was common and easy to cut, thus many colonial homes used pine for paneling, floors, and furniture. Pine was also a favorite tree of loggers, since pine logs can still be processed in a lumber mill a year or more after being cut down. In contrast, most hardwood trees such as cherry, maple, oak, and ash must be cut into 1" thick boards immediately after felling, or else large cracks will develop in the trunk which can render the wood worthless.
Although eastern white pine was frequently used for flooring in buildings constructed before the U.S. Civil War, the wood is soft and tends to cup over time with wear. George Washington opted for the much harder southern yellow pine at Mount Vernon, instead.
By 1719, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, had become the hub of pine logging and shipping. Portsmouth shipped 199 masts to England that year. In all, about 4500 masts were sent to England.
The eastern white pine played a significant role in the events leading to the American Revolution.Nizalowski, E. 1997. The mystery of the Pumpkin Pine. Newark Valley Historical Society, Newark, NY.Sloane, E. 1965. A Reverence for Wood. Balantine Books, NY. Marking of large white pines by the Crown had become controversial in the colonies by the first third of the 18th century. In 1734, the King's men were assaulted and beaten in Exeter, New Hampshire, in what was to be called the Mast Tree Riot. Colonel David Dunbar had been in the town investigating a stock pile of white pine in a pond and the ownership of the local timber mill before caning two townspeople. In 1772, the sheriff of Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, was sent to the town of Weare to arrest mill owners for the illegal possession of large white pines. That night, as the sheriff slept at the Pine Tree Tavern, he was attacked and nearly killed by an angry mob of colonists. This act of rebellion, later to become known as the Pine Tree Riot, may have fueled the Boston Tea Party in 1773.
After the Revolutionary War, the fledgling United States used large white pines to build out its own navy. The masts of the USS Constitution were originally made of eastern white pine. The original masts were single trees, but were later replaced by laminated spars to better withstand cannonballs.
In colonial times, an unusually large, lone, white pine was found in coastal South Carolina along the Black River, far east of its southernmost normal range. The king's mark was carved into it, giving rise to the town of Kingstree.
Eastern white pine is now widely grown in plantation forestry within its native area.
This wood is also favored by patternmakers for its easy working.
Pine tar is produced by slowly burning pine roots, branches, or small trunks in a partially smothered flame. Pine tar mixed with beer can be used to remove (flat worms) or (round worms). Pine tar mixed with sulfur is useful to treat dandruff, and marketed in present-day products. Pine tar can also be processed to make turpentine.Erichsen-Brown, C. 1979. Medicinal and Other Uses of North American Plants. Dover Publications, NY.
The young staminate cones were stewed by the Ojibwe Indians with meat, and were said to be sweet and not pitchy. In addition, the seeds are sweet and nutritious, but not as tasty as those of some of the western nut pines.
Pine resin (sap) has been used by various tribes to waterproof baskets, pails, and boats. The Ojibwe also used pine resin to successfully treat infections and even gangrenous wounds, because pine resin apparently has a number of quite efficient antimicrobials. Generally, a wet pulp from the inner bark, or pine tar mixed with beeswax or butter was applied to wounds and used as a salve to prevent infection.
The eastern white pine is the provincial tree of Ontario, Canada.
In the United States, it is the state tree of Maine (as of 1945) and Michigan (as of 1955). Its "pine cone and tassel" is also the state flower of Maine, and is prominently featured on the state's license plates. Sprigs of eastern white pine were worn as badges as a symbol of Vermont identity during the Vermont Republic and are depicted in a stained-glass window in the Vermont State House, on the Flag of Vermont, and on the naval ensign of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the state of Maine. The 1901 Maine Flag prominently featured the tree during its brief tenure as Maine's state flag. The Maine State Guard also use the tree in their uniform badges.
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