One hundred species of this plant make up forests in the temperate climate zone or on the mountain slopes of the subtropics. The evergreen mountain pine is most often represented by trees with very different crown shapes and sometimes by shrubs. In young plants, the bark is bright and smooth, but with age it changes its appearance, thickens, cracks, turns brown or gray.
By species, mountain pine differs in the location and size of cones and needles. On short young branches, needles grow in bunches. Each tuft can remain green and alive for a period of two to eleven years. These light-loving plants, very unpretentious to the composition of the soil and to moisture, extract nutrients from a well-developed root system that penetrates deep into the ground. However, in urban conditions, with a high level of smoke and gas content in the air, they develop worse than in clean air. Under natural conditions, the life span of a pine reaches three hundred to five hundred years.
Noticeable is the way the mountain pine pollinates. Pollination usually takes place in May, in some more northern regions - early June, at a time whenwhen young needles begin to bloom. During this period, the trees are literally covered with yellow pollen, and the wind spreads it, helping to carry out 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, around November, and there are a lot of cones full of seeds on the tree. By the beginning of winter, young shoots become woody, 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 the apical shoots in very severe frosts are still damaged by frost, but this does not affect the development of the whole plant.
Most pine species by the age of twenty already have a trunk height of twenty meters and a crown up to three meters in diameter. There are species that do not correspond to this, for example, growing in the territory between the Balkans and on the eastern side of the Alps, mountain pine Mugus is a shrub that creeps along 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, common in the Alps, is also very beautiful,Carpathians and the Balkans. It also spreads 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 rocky plots of land. The plant tolerates frost well. And its branches, along with the needles, are directed upwards. The plant has many dark brown buds.
At a young age of up to five years, mountain pine tolerates transplanting very well and takes root easily. At an older age, transplanting plants can be risky.
