One hundred species of this plant make up forests in the temperate climatic zone or on the mountain slopes of the subtropics. The evergreen mountain pine is most often represented by trees with very different forms of crowns and sometimes shrubs. In young plants, the bark is bright and smooth, but with age it changes its appearance, thickens, cracks, becomes brown or gray.
By species, mountain pine is distinguished by the location and size of cones and needles. On short young branches, needles needles grow in bunches. Each bundle can remain green and alive for a period of two to eleven years. These photophilous plants, very unpretentious to the composition of the soil and moisture, extract nutrients from a well-developed root system that penetrates deep into the earth. However, in urban conditions, with a high level of smoke and gas pollution, they develop worse than in clean air. Under natural conditions, pine life reaches three hundred to five hundred years.
Noteworthy is the way that mountain pine carries pollination. Pollination usually takes place in May, in some of the more northern regions - early June, at the time when young needles begin to blossom. During this period, the trees are literally covered with yellow pollen, and the wind spreads it, helping to realize pollination. Pine trees bloom and begin to bear fruit at the age of six to ten years.
Pine seeds develop in cones, which finally ripen a year after pollination, in the month of November, and there are a lot of cones full of seeds on the tree. By the beginning of winter, young shoots are lignified, and their apical buds are abundantly covered with a protective layer of
pine resin. These measures are aimed at protecting the tree from frost, although apical shoots in very severe frosts can still be damaged by frost, but this does not affect the development of the whole plant.
Most species of pine by the age of twenty already has a trunk height of twenty meters and a crown of up to three meters in diameter. There are species that do not correspond to this, for example, growing on the territory between the Balkans and on the eastern side of the Alps, the mountain pine Mugus is a shrub spreading on the ground, which can reach a maximum height of one and a half or two meters. The plant is very beautiful, has many symmetrically planted cones with a spine in the center, reminiscent of cinnamon in color. This species tolerates our winters very well, so it is very often chosen to decorate a rock garden, or a steep slope in areas in our climatic latitudes.
The Pumilio mountain pine, which is common in the Alps, Carpathians and the Balkans, is very beautiful. She also creeps along the slopes of the mountains, but reaches three meters not only up, but also in breadth. Designers are very actively using it to decorate stony land. The plant tolerates frosts well. And its branches along with the needles are directed upward. There are many dark brown cones on the plant.
At a young age up to five years, mountain pine tolerates transplant very well and easily takes root. At a more mature age, plant transplantation is risky.