Conifer Trees Database

Description. Canary Island pine is an evergreen coniferous species of tree that grows to mature heights of 125 feet (40 m), occasionally to 200 feet (60 m), with a straight stem and a usually open crown of regular, candelabra-like upswept branches. Its overall structure is narrowly conic when young, later widening to broadly ovoid-conic, finally becoming irregular and dense with age.

• Bark is very thick, scaly, fissured, patterned red-brown and buff.
• Branching mostly uninodal, but occasionally multinodal on vigorous young trees.
• Shoots are stout, 0.28 to 0.6 inch (7 - 15 mm) thick, rough, and colored buff to yellow-brown.
• Winter buds are large, cylindric to ovoid-acute shaped, with red-brown scales having long free, revolute tips, fringed with white hairs.
• Adult leaves (needles) are retained 1.5 to 3 years on the tree. They are borne in fascicles of 3 with a persistent 0.8 inch (2 cm) sheath, and measure 6 to 11 inches (15 - 28 cm) long. Needles are bright green to yellow-green colored, slender, about 0.04 inch (1 mm) thick, with serrulate margins, and fine lines of stomata on all faces. Those measuring over 8 inches (20 cm) long droop gracefully with their weight.
• Juvenile leaves are strongly glaucous, 1.2 to 2.4 inches (3 - 6 cm) long, on slender, 0.12 inch (3 mm) shoots, and are grown on young trees for 3 to 6 years (occasionally longer), and produced again on epicormic shoots after injury (they may be mixed with adult foliage on some cultivated trees.
• Seed cones grow slightly deflexed on short stout peduncles. Their structure is symmetrically ovoid-conic, hard and heavy, measuring 4 to 8 inches (10 - 20 cm) long and 2 to 2.8 inches (5 - 7 cm) broad when closed. In April, two years after pollination, the cones ripen to a rich, glossy, chestnut-brown color, measuring 3.6 to 5.2 inches (9 - 13 cm) broad, finally opening the same summer or up to a year later.
• Cone scales are stout, thick, woody, and very stiff. The rhomboid-shaped apophysis is 0.6 to 0.88 inch (15 - 22 mm) long and 0.8 to × 1.1 inches (20 - 28 mm) wide with a slight to moderate transverse ridge. The umbo is dorsal, flat to slightly raised, measures 0.24 to 0.36 inch (6 - 9 mm) wide, colored brown to grey-buff.
• Seeds are shiny blackish brown above, matt gray below, measuring 0.44 to 0.6 inch (11 - 15 mm) long and 0.24 to 0.28 inch (6 - 7 mm) wide with a 0.6 to 1 inch (15 - 25 mm) long and 0.4 inch (10 mm) wing, buff to reddish with numerous wavy dark brown streaks. Unlike most hard pines, the wing is not easily removed from the seed.

Distribution. This species is native to the western Canary Islands of Gran Canaria, Tenerife, La Palma, Hierro and Gomera (west of north Africa), an area of sub-humid Mediterranean climate. Predominant substrate is volcanic (of necessity, as the Canary Islands are volcanoes), growing at elevations of 2000 to 6,600 feet (600 - 2000 m) above sea level (varying with aspect). The tree forms distinct belts of sparse woodland. Forests in the northern cloud belt of Tenerife are much denser, with closed canopy, while those in the drier south and west are open, with widely spaced trees. It is a sub-tropical species unable to survive the winter frosts of temperate climates, which also restrict its ascent on the mountains of the Canary Islands.

Hardy to USDA Zone 9 - cold hardiness limit between 20° and 30°F (-6.6° and -1.1°C).