Pinus sibirica, or Siberian pine, in the family Pinaceae is a species of pine tree that occurs in Siberia from 58°E in the Ural Mountains east to 126°E in the Stanovoy Range in southern Sakha Republic, and from Igarka at 68°N in the lower Yenisei River valley, south to 45°N in central Mongolia.
Description
Pinus sibirica is a member of the white pine group,
Pinus subgenus
Strobus, and like all members of that group, the leaves ('needles') are in fascicles (bundles) of five, with a deciduous sheath. They are 5–10 cm long. Siberian pine
conifer cone are 5–9 cm long. The 9–12 mm long
have only a vestigial wing and are dispersed by spotted nutcrackers.
Siberian pine is treated as a variety or subspecies of the very similar Swiss pine ( Pinus cembra) by some botanists. It differs in having slightly larger cones, and needles with three resin canals instead of two in Swiss pine.
Like other European and white pines, Siberian pine is very resistant to white pine blister rust ( Cronartium ribicola). This fungal disease was accidentally introduced from Europe into North America, where it has caused severe mortality in the American native white pines in many areas, notably the closely related whitebark pine. Siberian pine is of great value for research into hybridisation and genetic modification to develop rust resistance in these species.
File:Flowering pine cones.png|Flowering pine cones
Pinus sibirica cone and shoots PAN.JPG|Cone
File:Pinus sibirica Sosna syberyjska 2020-07-23 01.jpg|Foliage
File:Seeds of Pinus sibirica.jpg|seeds
Distribution
In the north of its range, it grows at low altitudes, typically 100–200 m, whereas further south, it is a
mountain tree, growing at 1,000-2,400 m altitude. It often reaches the
tree line in this area. The mature size is up to 30–40 m height, and 1.5 m trunk diameter. Its maximum lifetime is 800–850 years.
File:Улаганский перевал - panoramio - Tanya Dedyukhina (3).jpg| Pinus sibirica Ulagansky Pass near Ulagan, Russia
File:Ергаги 07.jpg| Pinus sibirica in Ergaki, Ermakovskiy district
Cultivation
Siberian pine,
Pinus sibirica, is a popular
ornamental tree in
and large
where the
climate is cold, such as central
Canada, giving steady though not fast growth on a wide range of sites. It is very tolerant of severe winter cold, hardy down to at least –60 °C, and also of wind exposure.
The seeds are also harvested and sold as , which in Russia are marketed as Cedar nuts ().
"Siberian cedar"
The
Russian language name
Сибирский кедр (tr. Sibirsky kedr)
is usually translated in English as "Siberian cedar." References to "cedar" or "dwarf cedar" in texts translated from Russian usually refer to this tree or related pines, not to true
Cedrus.
Chemistry
Pinostilbene is a stilbenoid found, along with
resveratrol, in the bark of
P. sibirica.
[Hydroxystilbenes from the bark of Pinus sibirica. N. A. Tyukavkina, A. S. Gromova, V. I. Lutskii and V. K. Voronov, Chemistry of Natural Compounds, September 1972, Volume 8, Issue 5, pages 570-572, ]
See also
-
Pinus pumila × P. sibirica
External links
