Pinus sylvestris (Scots pine)

Pinus sylvestris – (Scots pine)

Perennial tree of the pine family -Pinnaceae- up to 40 m, although it usually reaches 25. Erect stems, with grizzly brown fissures. Reddish orange or brown bark at the lower part and red in the superior part and in the branches. The ramification is complete in the youngest samples, presenting a very defined pyramidal form. As it grows, it loses the inferior branches, developing a very high nude trunk bearing some few branches in the superior part that provide it a more ungraceful aspect and a flatter crown.

Its leaves are bluish green, from 3 to 8 centimeters long, pungent and arranged in pairs. Young leaves appear doubly long, in groups of 3 or 4. Female cones pointed, brown or gray, almost conical, till 6 cm long, solitary or in groups of three, placed on short peduncles. Winged seeds till 4 mm long, greenish black. The pollination is carried out in spring. The cones almost take two years to become mature.