Virginia pine (Pinus virginiana): 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 virginiana Mill., pine family
Other names	Jersey pine, scrub pine and spruce pine (Silvics); Jersey and scrub pine (Wood Handbook)
Native status, USDA PLANTS	Native in the lower 48 states; listed as introduced in Canada
Size, Silvics	Commonly a small or medium-sized tree; a record tree measured 81 cm (31.8 in) in diameter and 34.7 m (114 ft) tall. On the best sites trees can reach 37 m (120 ft), with an average height of 15 to 23 m (50 to 75 ft) at age 50
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 Virginia pine, once considered a forest weed and called scrub pine, does so well in reforesting abandoned and cutover land that it has become a principal source of pulpwood and lumber in the Southeast. It records the tree growing throughout the Piedmont and at lower elevations in the mountains from central Pennsylvania southwest to northeastern Mississippi, Alabama and northern Georgia, and in the Atlantic Coastal Plain as far north as New Jersey and Long Island. The handbook lists soils derived from marine deposits, crystalline rocks, sandstones and shales, and to a lesser extent limestone, and says many sites carrying the species have lost much of the top soil layer to past erosion under intensive farming.

Cones and stands

Silvics describes Virginia pine as monoecious and wind pollinated, with pollen shedding beginning about the middle of March in the south of the range and as late as the latter part of May in the north. Cones mature from late September to early November. Unlike many other pines it produces cones in all parts of the crown, and empty cones usually persist for several years and can stay on the tree for as many as 15 years. The handbook says well-stocked stands on average sites can have as many as 3,950 stems per hectare (1,600 per acre) at age 20, falling to about 500 per hectare (200 per acre) at age 70, and gives an annual growth rate of 6 cubic metres per hectare (1 cord per acre) as possible over a large part of the range.

Roots

The handbook calls Virginia pine a shallow-rooted species and says windthrow losses are likely if old stands are thinned excessively.

Special uses

Silvics calls Virginia pine the most preferred of the southern conifers as a Christmas tree, with a usual rotation of 5 to 10 years, and says it performs well on strip-mined sites in the eastern and central states, with one West Virginia study finding good survival, quick growth and no serious pests 14 years after planting. It adds that because the wood of older trees is often softened by fungal decay, the species provides nesting sites for cavity-nesting birds.

Wood

The Wood Handbook (FPL-GTR-282, 2021) says the heartwood of Virginia pine is orange and the sapwood nearly white and relatively wide, and describes the wood as moderately heavy, moderately strong, moderately hard and moderately stiff, with moderately high shrinkage and high shock resistance. It classes the species as a minor member of the Southern Pine grading group, with uses in lumber, railroad crossties, mine timbers and pulpwood.

Wood Handbook Table 5-3b	Specific gravity	Modulus of rupture (lbf per square inch)	Side hardness (lbf)
Green	0.45	7,300	540
At 12% moisture content	0.48	13,000	740

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.

Pests, diseases and damage the handbook names

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

Heart rot. Phellinus pini, often present in stands more than 60 years old and rare in stands under 50 years, with as much as 34 percent of the trees infected in one severe 59-year-old stand. The handbook says this susceptibility is part of the reason pulpwood rotations are generally preferred to sawtimber rotations.
Pitch canker. Fusarium moniliforme var. subglutinans, which enters twigs or stems through small wounds, causes heavy pitch flow and eventually girdles the twig or stem; the handbook gives a mortality rate of about 90 percent for infected seedlings. The guide pitch canker of pine covers the disease.
Occasional diseases. Atropellis stem cankers, eastern gall rust, a stem rust, annosus root rot and butt rots, which it says usually cause little loss of growth.
Insects. The southern pine beetle (southern pine beetle page), Ips beetles, and the Virginia pine sawfly and redheaded pine sawfly, with trees stressed by lightning, fire or logging injury more susceptible than sound trees. The pales weevil can greatly reduce regeneration on cut areas.
Fire and animals. Young trees are particularly vulnerable to fire because of thin bark and a lack of long-lived dormant buds, and meadow mice girdle young trees, in Tennessee causing heavy mortality in young plantations.
Air pollution. Of 18 pine species tested, Virginia pine was most sensitive to ozone, with 69 percent of seedlings suffering foliar damage; dormant seedlings were resistant.

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.