Chinese white pine
| Pinus armandii | |
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| Chinese white pine with deer and red-crested crane | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Division: | Pinophyta |
| Class: | Pinopsida |
| Order: | Pinales |
| Family: | Pinaceae |
| Genus: | Pinus |
| Subgenus: | Strobus |
| Species: | P. armandii |
| Binomial name | |
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Pinus armandii Franch. |
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| Synonyms | |
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Pinus armandii (family Pinaceae), the Armand pine or Chinese white pine, is a species of pine native to China, occurring from southern Shanxi west to southern Gansu and south to Yunnan, with outlying populations in Anhui. It grows at altitudes of 2200–3000 m in Taiwan, and it also extends a short distance into northern Burma. In Chinese it is known as "Mount Hua pine" (华山松).
It grows at 1,000-3,300 m altitude, with the lower altitudes mainly in the northern part of the range. It is a tree reaching 35 m (115 ft) height, with a trunk up to 1 m (3 ft 3 in) in diameter.
It 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 8–20 cm long. The cones are 9–22 cm long and 6–8 cm broad, with stout, thick scales. The seeds are large, 10–16 mm long and have only a vestigial wing; they are dispersed by spotted nutcrackers. The cones mature in their second year, this is a juvenile female cone:
The species has two or three varieties:
IUCN has listed var. dabeshanensis (assessed as Pinus dabeshanensis) as vulnerable and var. mastersiana as endangered.
Pinus armandii has also been reported in the past from Hainan off the south coast of China, and two islands off southern Japan, but these pines differ in a number of features and are now treated as distinct species, Hainan white pine Pinus fenzeliana and Yakushima white pine Pinus amamiana respectively.
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Wikipedia