Lacebark Pine

This is one of the bigger Lacebark Pines (Pinus bungeana) that I have seen in New York - it was taken at the New York Botanical Garden.


Lacebark Pines were first discovered by westerners by a German-Russian biologist named Alexander G. von Bunge. He found it in the mountains of Central China in 1831.

The tree above is a pretty mature specimen, but they rarely are seen larger than 30 or 35 feet tall. The needles are fairly short and malleable and are occur in fascicles of three .

But the best part of this tree is the bark:


I have a soft spot for any exfoliating bark (sooner or later I will post some Stewartia pseudocamellia photos, too), but I really love the Lacebark Pine because its bark is full of green and yellow hues. It looks almost like camouflage, whereas a lot of other exfoliating barks exhibit more neutral shades of gray, brown and white. The only unfortunate thing is that, since it is an evergreen, you can walk by the tree and never notice the bark.