Aleppo Pine

An Aleppo pine begins life fairly narrow and upright, then slowly opens into a broad, rounded or umbrella-shaped crown as it ages. The trunk often bows or twists as it grows, so old specimens take on a windswept, open look rather than the neat cone shape of many pines. The needles grow in bundles of two, called fascicles, and are slender, soft-looking, and light green, giving the whole canopy a fine, airy texture that lets light filter through. Bark on young trees is gray and smooth, but with age it thickens and turns reddish-brown, splitting into scaly ridges near the base while staying thin and flaky higher up. Because the branches are limber and irregular, no two mature trees grow into quite the same shape.

This pine comes from the hot, dry hillsides of the Mediterranean, where summers are long and fires are common, and those conditions shaped how it grows. Many of its cones are sealed shut with resin and open only after they are heated, so a passing fire triggers them to release their winged seeds onto freshly cleared ground, making the tree one of the first to return after a burn. Its deep roots and narrow needles help it endure long dry spells, though it may shed older needles when it is badly stressed for water. In the landscape, it handles full sun, reflected heat, wind, and fast-draining rocky or alkaline soils, which makes it useful as a screen, windbreak, or shade tree in warm, dry regions. It is not dependably cold-hardy however, and young trees in particular can be damaged by hard frost. Gardeners in the hottest low-desert areas should also know that prolonged drought and bark beetles have stressed and killed a number of mature Aleppo pines in recent years, so even an established tree benefits from occasional deep watering during extreme heat.

Like other pines, the Aleppo pine is monoecious, meaning a single tree carries both male and female cones. In spring, the small male cones release clouds of yellow pollen that the wind carries to the young female cones, which then take about two years to grow into the woody, egg-shaped cones that ripen a glossy red-brown. It belongs to a mostly Mediterranean group of pines and is closely related to the Turkish pine (Pinus brutia), with which it is easily confused. The species was named in 1768 by the botanist Philip Miller after the Syrian city of Aleppo, even though the tree grows across the wider Mediterranean rather than only near that city. Its fragrant resin has long been used to flavor the traditional Greek wine known as retsina, a reminder that this pine has lived alongside people around the Mediterranean for a very long time.