Pitch pine (Pinus rigida): what the agencies record

This page reports what US federal publications say about one tree. It does not identify trees from descriptions or photos and does not say what should be done with any tree. The family overview, tree species in the agency records, explains the sources and holds the comparison table.

At a glance

Item	What the source records
Scientific name	Pinus rigida Mill. in USDA PLANTS, pine family
Other names	No other common names are listed in Silvics
Native status, USDA PLANTS	Native in Canada and the lower 48 states
Size, Silvics	A medium-sized tree; in stands seldom more than 24 m (80 ft) tall or 61 cm (24 in) in diameter at breast height; a Maine tree measured 109 cm (43 in) across and 29 m (96 ft) tall with a crown spread of 15 m (50 ft)
Longevity, Silvics	Reaches a maximum age of 200 years and a maximum height of 30 m (100 ft) in Pennsylvania; individual trees exceeding 350 years of age have been reported in southeastern New York
Green weight of the wood, NRS-38	50 lb per cubic foot, without bark

Native range

The Silvics of North America handbook (Agriculture Handbook 654, volume 1, 1990) says the species name means rigid or stiff and refers to both the cone scales and the wide-spreading, sharply pointed needles. Pitch pine grows from central Maine to New York and extreme southeastern Ontario, south to Virginia and southern Ohio, and in the mountains to eastern Tennessee, northern Georgia and western South Carolina. The handbook says it grows mostly on the poorer soils, so its distribution is spotty, and that in the Northeast it is most common on the sandy soils of Cape Cod, Long Island and southeastern New Jersey and in some sections of sandy or shallow soils in Pennsylvania. Average annual precipitation in its range is usually between 940 and 1,420 mm (37 and 56 in).

Cones

Silvics says pitch pine is monoecious, with female flowers often on higher branches than male flowers. In southern New Jersey the male flowers are visible by the third week of April and pollen shedding usually occurs during the second or third week of May. Cones reach full size of 4 to 7 cm (1.5 to 2.8 in) and mature at the end of the second summer. The handbook says cones often remain unopened on the trees for several years or until the heat from a forest fire opens them, and that seeds shed in midwinter are an important food source for squirrels, quail and small birds such as the pine warbler, pine grosbeak and black-capped chickadee.

Growth and roots

On the better sites in Pennsylvania, the handbook says pitch pine maintains an average annual height growth of 0.3 m (1 ft) or more until the trees are 50 to 60 years old, and trees add little height after 90 to 100 years. Fully stocked even-aged stands there yield 210 to 350 cubic m per hectare (15,000 to 25,000 board feet per acre) at age 90, while mean annual growth reaches its maximum at about age 30. In closed stands of seedling origin undamaged by fire it self-prunes about as well as shortleaf pine, and open-grown trees typically develop large spreading branches that contribute to the rough appearance many people associate with the species.

On well-drained sandy soils, trees 10 cm (4 in) and larger may have vertical roots reaching depths of 2.4 to 2.7 m (8 to 9 ft), while heavier or wetter soils give shallower root systems. Even in saturated soils with water tables less than 0.3 m (1 ft) down, roots on sandy sites may reach 0.9 to 1.5 m (3 to 5 ft), and in swamps they live and grow below the water table. The handbook suggests that deep rooting is a reason the species is relatively windfirm, and says Virginia pine proved much more susceptible to windthrow than pitch pine in Maryland.

Wood

Silvics says the coarse-grained wood is only moderately strong but contains a comparatively large amount of resin, weighing about 513 kg per cubic metre (32 lb per cubic foot), and that it was important in the days of wooden ships. It says the wood resists decay and is used for ship building, rough construction, mine props, fencing, railroad ties, pulpwood, crating and fuel, and that at one time the wood was destructively distilled for naval stores. The Wood Handbook (FPL-GTR-282, 2021) describes pitch and pond pine together: heartwood brownish red or dark orange and resinous, wide light yellow sapwood, and wood that is moderately heavy to heavy, moderately strong, stiff and hard. It classes the lumber as a minor species in the grading rules for the Southern Pine species group. Table 5-3b has a separate pitch pine row, shown below.

Wood Handbook Table 5-3b	Specific gravity	Modulus of rupture (lbf per square inch)	Side hardness (lbf)
Green	0.47	6,800	Not published
At 12% moisture content	0.52	10,800	Not published

The Wood Handbook states that specific gravity is based on oven-dry weight and the volume when green or at 12% moisture content. The green weight of the wood without bark is in the NRS-38 table, the same figure used in the log weight calculator.

Diseases, insects and damage the handbook names

Silvics (1990) names these agents by the names it used.

Fungi that usually do not cause serious damage. Stem rusts (Cronartium comptoniae, C. quercuum, C. quercuum f. sp. fusiforme and C. comandrae), needle rusts and blights (nine Coleosporium species, Ploioderma lethale and P. hedgcockii), twig cankers such as Diplodia pinea, root rots such as Heterobasidion annosum (see Heterobasidion root rot), and trunk rots, chiefly Phellinus pini, which the handbook says does not become important in stands until the trees are 75 years old.
Insects. Tip moths (Rhyacionia frustrana and R. rigidana), the pitch pine looper, sawflies (chiefly Neodiprion lecontei, N. pratti paradoxicus and N. pinusrigidae), the southern pine beetle (Dendroctonus frontalis, see southern pine beetle), the pine webworm and the pine needleminer. The handbook says loopers periodically cause extensive damage in Massachusetts, and that in 1954 they defoliated pines on more than 20,230 ha (50,000 acres) of Cape Cod.
Weather and salt. The most common wind damage is breakage of defective large trees, with hurricanes causing windfall in the oldest natural stands and in plantations more than 20 years old, especially if planted trees are infected with root rots. Heavy wet snow or ice occasionally breaks leaders or branches. Pitch pine foliage is more resistant to salt spray than that of associated species, but gales can deposit enough spray to injure foliage over extensive coastal areas, and the handbook says few affected trees die, the chief result being reduction in growth.
Animals. Deer, rabbits and mice, with damage by deer and rabbits limited to small seedlings or sprouts.

The guide on reporting a pest in the United States and the Canada reporting page give the offices that take sightings of regulated pests. Who may apply pesticides is in pesticide licences by country.