Pinus pungens (Table Mountain pine) description

Conservation Status

Pinus pungens

Lambert (1805)

Common names

Table Mountain pine, mountain pine, hickory pine, prickly pine (Della-Bianca 1990).

Taxonomic notes

Type not designated. No synonyms. This species belongs to subgenus Pinus, subsection Australes, clade Taeda (Cruz-Nicolás et al. 2024), which is comprised of species all found in the SE US, but occupying different habitats. Within this clade, transcriptome analysis places it sister to a P. rigida + P. serotina clade with a most recent common ancestor in the early Miocene (Jin et al. 2021). An analysis based on the nuclear genome also places it sister to a P. rigida + P. serotina clade (Cruz-Nicolás et al. 2024).

Table Mountain pine forms natural hybrids with P. echinata and with P. rigida, two other species in the Taeda clade (Della-Bianca 1990).

Description

Monoecious evergreen trees to 12 m tall and 60 cm dbh, trunk straight to crooked, erect to leaning, poorly self-pruning; crown irregularly rounded or flattened. Bark red- to gray-brown, irregularly checked into scaly plates. Branches horizontally spreading; twigs slender, orange- to yellow-brown, aging darker brown, rough. Buds ovoid to cylindric, red-brown, 0.6-0.9 cm, resinous. Leaves 2 per fascicle, spreading or ascending, persisting 3 years, 3-8 cm × 1.4-2.1 mm, twisted, deep yellow-green, all surfaces with fine stomatal lines, margins harshly serrulate, apex acute to short-acuminate; sheath 5-10 mm, base persistent. Pollen cones ellipsoid, ca. 15 mm long, yellow. Seed cones maturing in 2 years, variably serotinous, mostly whorled, downcurved, asymmetric, ovoid before opening, broad-ovoid when open, 6-10 cm long, gray- to pale red-brown, nearly sessile or on stalks to 1 cm; apophyses thickened, diamond-shaped, strongly keeled, elongate, mammillate at cone base abaxially; umbo central, a stout, curved, sharp claw. Seeds deltoid-obovoid, oblique; body ca. 6 mm, deep purple-brown to black; wing 10-20(-30) mm. 2n=24 (Zobel 1970, Kral 1993). See García Esteban et al. (2004) for a detailed characterization of the wood anatomy.

Also see the Key to the Pines of the Southeastern United States.

In the hybrid with P. echinata, there are 2-3 relatively long and twisted needles, of width intermediate between the parents; they are stiff as in P. pungens, but not sharp-pointed. The seed cones are intermediate between the parent species (Dorman 1976). In the hybrid with P. rigida (reported from Pisgah Ridge, NC), needles resembled P. pungens but the seed cone was intermediate between the parent species and a dense group of short, small-diameter branches about on the bole suggested the sprouting character of P. rigida (Zobel 1969).

"While the tree resembles scrub pine (Pinus virginiana Mill.) with which it is associated, its stiff, sharp-pointed needles serve to distinguish an immature tree, while the large persistent cones with heavy apophysis, prominent umbo, and stout spine which is divergent or recurved, immediately betray the mature Pinus pungens" (Kelley 1931).

Life History

Trees begin producing cones as young as age 5 and reach full production potential at maturity. A large proportion of the cones are serotinous; they are retained, closed, on the tree, for 5-25 years, and are released after a stand-destroying disturbance, most commonly fire (Zobel 1969, Barden 1979). Pollen is dispersed from late March into early April depending on local climate; this is early compared to other pines in the area, minimizing risks of hybridization. Seed cones mature in autumn of the second growing season, and seeds from non-serotinous cones are then released. Seedling germination and growth require ample sunlight and exposed mineral soil. At the seedling state P. pungens readily outcompetes common competitors P. rigida and P. virginiana due to a larger seed size, more rapid growth, and greater drought tolerance; but at greater ages the competing pines outgrow P. pungens on good sites, leaving P. pungens dominant mainly on poor soils and droughty sites. Also, it is very shade-intolerant. Barring a stand-destroying disturbance, trees may reach ages of more than 200 years (Zobel 1969, Della-Bianco 1990 and sources therein).

Distribution and Ecology

USA: Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Georgia in the Appalachian Mountains and associated Piedmont. The climate is generally temperate with year-round precipitation that varies from about 760-2030 mm, but the plant usually grows on sites that are edaphically dry due to sun exposure and shallow soils. Temperatures vary with latitude and elevation; the hottest sites experience average July temperatures of 15-27°C, while the coldest sites experience January temperatures of -1 to -7°C. Frost-free days average 170. Soils are mainly derived from siliceous sediments; the species does not grow on carbonates. Normal soils are shallow, stony, strongly acid, excessively drained, infertile, and of low productivity (Zobel 1969, Della-Bianco 1990, Kral 1993).

Table Mountain pine grows at (35-)305-1220(-1762) m elevation, mostly on xeric sites such as cliffs, shale barrens, and exposed ridgelines; on slopes, aspects are S to W-facing over 90% of the time. These are generalities, though; P. pungens has also been found growing around bogs in NC and VA, and in suburban Washington DC. Usually, though, it occurs on sites with the warmest and driest microclimate available. At these sites, its most common associate is P. virginiana; on slightly wetter sites with slightly better soils, P. rigida and oaks (mainly Quercus montana and Q. coccinea) become predominant; another dozen or so tree associates are reasonably common, with the mix varying considerably over the latitude range of the species. The most common shrub associates are Kalmia latifolia, Vaccinium spp., Smilax spp., and Gaylussacia baccata (Kelley 1931, Zobel 1969).

Distribution data from USGS (1999). Points represent isolated or approximate locations.

P. pungens is an early-successional, shade-intolerant species that establishes via prolific opening of serotinous seed cones after a fire; but over time it yields dominance to faster-growing pines and hardwoods and eventually dies out of the stand (Zobel 1969, Williams and Johnson 1990). Its most common competitors, P. rigida and Quercus montana, are also highly adapted to stand-destroying fire, and are codominant in most stands of P. pungens (Zobel 1969).

The only ignition source for these fires, prior to human settlement of North America, was lightning; the range of P. pungens has relatively few lighting strikes, currently about 4 strikes/km²/year, as opposed to 24 strikes/km²/year within the range of P. palustris growing in Coastal Plain sites at the same latitude (Vaisala Xweather 2025); this may explain why P. pungens shows adaptation to less-frequent fire rather than the frequent, low-severity fires that more widespread southern pines are adapted to. However, during the period of record, humans were present on this landscape and provided another possible ignition source (Aldrich et al. 2014).

Fire histories have been developed for five sites in the southern Appalachians, that indicate a lively fire regime during the sampled period 1638-1921. These sites featured a mix of P. pungens and P. rigida. Trees recorded their first fire, on average, at the age of 12-13 years; the intervals between fires ranged from 1 to 34 years with point mean fire return intervals of 9-13 yr. Area-wide fires that burned across multiple stands occurred at 6-13 yr intervals. Most fires occurred during dormancy, showing that fires were mainly between late fall and early spring. Weak correlations between fire and climate conditions indicate that many ignitions were probably anthropogenic, and fire occurrence showed little change between aboriginal (Cherokee tribe) and Euro-American historical periods. As in so many other parts of the continental U.S., though, a period of fire suppression began in the early 20th century and, at the studied sites, fires are virtually absent since 1925 (Flatley et al. 2013, Aldrich et al. 2014). Fires prior to the modern period must have been of low to moderate severity, but of course, that is generally the case in fire history studies; after high-severity fire, there's usually not much left to study. It has been suggested, though, that high-severity fires occurred in the southern Appalachians at lower frequencies, e.g. 75 years (Frost 1998). It is certainly plausible that more severe fires might have been associated with rare events such as hot, dry, windy weather. The fire history work also suggests a spatial pattern similar to gap-phase dynamics whereby fires caused local areas of elevated mortality within the forest mosaic, so that pine regeneration occurred in a patchy manner focused on locations with relatively recent, relatively more intense burning (Waldrop et al. 2002, Flatley et al. 2013). Overall, these findings are similar to those of other fire-history studies performed in other pine-oak stands farther north in the Appalachians, so these results may be representative of the rest of the P. pungens distribution (Flatley et al. 2013 and sources cited therein).

In an effort to preserve and restore extant P. pungens forest, prescribed burning has been reintroduced in some areas. Moderate-intensity burns are unsuccessful; many of the hardwoods resprout and canopy removal is not sufficient to allow successful pine regeneration. Prescribed burns must remove a large fraction of the forest canopy in order to be achieve successful regeneration. It is a difficult problem; there are numerous management challenges involved in conducting and containing moderately-high-severity prescribed burns (Welch et al. 2000, Welch and Waldrop 2001).

On some sites (which have become relatively more abundant during the period of fire suppression), P. pungens occupies open, xeric sites with poor soils where it experiences little competition but is vulnerable to mortality from infrequent severe drought (Barden 1977, 1988, 2000). Due to generally low site productivity and slow growth it can persist on these sites for long periods without fire, but regeneration is poor due to eventual development of a dense shrub layer, and even on these sites pine will eventually be excluded in the absence of fire (Barden and Costa 2020). In particular, the pine is more dependent upon fire than its competitors; in the face of other sources of mortality, such as pine beetle infestations or ice storms, P. pungens loses dominance to competitors such as Quercus spp. (Lafon and Kutac 2003).

Few pests or pathogens affect P. pungens. The southern pine beetle Dendroctonus frontalis is a fairly common cause of mortality and is generally associated with reduced sap flow, thus it affects trees stressed by drought or other factors, and older trees (Zobel 1969, Knebel and Wentworth 2007). This beetle is a common stressor in all pines native to the SE US. Dioryctria yatesi, a cone-boring insect, can in some years destroy entire local seed crops (Zobel 1969, Della-Bianca 1990). The European pine sawfly, Neodiprion sertifer, at times defoliates trees, but seldom kills. Trees of all sizes are also attacked by the pine twig gall scale, Matsucoccus gallicola, which causes bark to swell and crack, killing foliage and tree (Baker 1972, Della-Bianca 1990). Among fungal pathogens, the most common are the heart rot Phellinus pini and the butt rot Phaeolus schweinitzii; both mainly attack older trees and lead to mortality by breakage or treefall (Hepting 1971).

P. pungens likely provides some function as wildlife habitat, but it has virtually escaped analysis. Zobel (1969) discusses red squirrel (Tamasciurus hudsonicus) predation of the seed cones, which is unusual: the squirrel first gnaws off the branch (up to 25 mm diameter) bearing the cone(s), and then disarticulates the cones on the ground. Coffey et al. (1999) describe an experimental test of whether the spikes on the seed cones are likely to discourage predation by birds (they do).

In 2011, the IUCN assessed P. pungens as of "Least Concern" for conservation because it is "a widespread species that is under some threat from altered forest management that prevents fires and encourages other species more suitable for timber production. However, its occurrence over a wide area and its ecology seem to ensure that it will not become threatened with extinction in the foreseeable future" (Farjon 2013). Other authorities seem to agree, although continued fire suppression in its range is likely to lead to a declining population trend. Williams (1998) provides a more detailed review of potential threats to the species. Climate change forecasts indicate relatively little effect upon this species, but the result has low confidence (USFS 2025).

Remarkable Specimens

The official "champion" trees are co-champions. One is 73.6 cm dbh, 39.0 m tall, 17.4 m crown spread, measured in 2021, located in Union County, Georgia. The other is 88.1 cm dbh, 36.0 m tall, 14.3 m crown spread, measured in 2019, located in Stokes County, North Carolina (Payne 2025). The latter one may be the same tree that was champion in 1995; at that time it was diameter 78 cm, height 29 m, crown spread 14 m (American Forests 1996). The largest tree on record was 94.4 cm dbh (Coker and Totten 1945, cited by Zobel 1969); no records have exceeded the 39 m height of the current champion.

There are few age data, but Pederson (2025) reports a crossdated age of 271 years for a site in Pendleton County, West Virgina sampled by A. Hessl and T. Saladygya. Other records include a crossdated age of 250 years for a site in Avery County, North Carolina; and a crossdated age of 232 years for specimen GKA111 collected at Griffith Knob, Virginia by G. DeWeese, H. Grissino-Mayer, and C. Lafon.

Ethnobotany

Aboriginal use of Pinus pungens is recorded for the Cherokee people and mentions only the use of its wood for carving, construction, and building canoes. This seems a very incomplete listing. Many different tribes lived within the range of Table Mountain pine, and their people likely exploited the resource widely, putting it to the same general uses as other southern pines. These include (Native American Ethnobotany Database 2025):

Wood for fuel, soot to make a black body paint, saplings used to construct pens and similar structures, bark used as a floor covering (as in P. palustris).
Basketry, furniture, adhesives, torches, decoctions used to treat sores and pains (as in P. elliottii).
Infusions and resins ingested as an emetic or laxative and to treat worms (as in Pinus echinata and P. rigida).
Although not recorded in the range of P. pungens, the pitch of various pines around the world was used for waterproofing and as a sealant, e.g. to make baskets watertight.

Kral (1993) claimed that Table Mountain pine is used for pulpwood and firewood, but Peattie (1950) was more accurate when he said "“This intransigent pine has no business future, nor will it — slow-growing, stingy of shade, without one concession to grace — ever find a role in horticulture. Its place is high on the mountain ridges, where it looks down on the soaring buzzards, where the wildcat lives and the rattler suns his coils." Its primary use is to stabilize soil, minimizing erosion and runoff from the vast shale barrens and other rugged topographic features within its natural range (Hack and Goodlett 1960).

Hardy to Zone 6 (cold hardiness limit between -23.2°C and -17.8°C) (Bannister and Neuner 2001), it is occasionally seen in horticulture, where it usually forms a small, gnarly, picturesque tree.

Observations

The species can be seen in a spectacular rocky setting at Chimney Rock State Park in North Carolina. It is often reported from Linville Gorge Wilderness, NC; see Newell and Peet (1998) for detail on this area. Numerous observations are also reported on iNaturalist.

Remarks

The epithet pungens means "sharp"", or prickly, in reference to the spines on the seed cone scales.

The name "Table Mountain pine" is said to reflects Andre Michaux's collection of the pine in 1794 at Table Rock Mountain, NC (Zobel 1969, citing Michaux's journals)". Michaux did not publish his work until 1810; Lambert (1805) received his samples from William Strickland of England, who "found large forests of this Pine on the summit of the Blue Mountains, on the Frontiers of Virginia and N. Carolina."

The final scene of the 1992 film The Last of the Mohicans takes place in a nice P. pungens stand within Chimney Rock State Park in North Carolina.

Citations

Aldrich, S. R., Lafon, C. W., Grissino‐Mayer, H. D., and DeWeese, G. G. 2014. Fire history and its relations with land use and climate over three centuries in the central Appalachian Mountains, USA. Journal of Biogeography 41(11):2093–2104. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.12373.

American Forests 1996. The 1996-1997 National Register of Big Trees. Washington, DC: American Forests.

Baker, Whiteford L. 1972. Eastern forest insects. Washington, DC: U.S.D.A. Miscellaneous Publication 1175. 642 p.

Barden, L. S. 1977. Self-maintaining populations of Pinus pungens Lam. in the southern Appalachian Mountains. Castanea 42(4):316–323.

Barden, L. S. 1979. Serotiny and seed viability of Pinus pungens in the southern Appalachians. Castanea 44(1):44–47.

Barden, L. S. 1988. Drought and survival in a self-perpetuating Pinus pungens population: equilibrium or nonequilibrium? American Midland Naturalist 119(2):253–257. https://doi.org/10.2307/2425808.

Barden, L. S. 2000. Population maintenance of Pinus pungens Lam. (Table Mountain pine) after a century without fire. Natural Areas Journal 20:227-233.

Barden, L. S., and Costa, J. T. 2020. Four decades of Table Mountain Pine demography on Looking Glass Rock (Transylvania Co., North Carolina, USA). Castanea 85(1):23-32. https://doi.org/10.2179/0008-7475.85.1.23.

Coffey, K., Benkman, C. W., and Milligan, B. G. 1999. The adaptive significance of spines on pine cones. Ecology 80(4):1221–1229.

Cruz-Nicolás, Jorge, Juan Pablo Jaramillo-Correa, and David S. Gernandt. 2024. Stochastic processes and changes in evolutionary rate are associated with diversification in a lineage of tropical hard pines (Pinus). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 192:108011, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2024.108011.

Della-Bianco, Lino. 1990. Table Mountain Pine, in Silvics of North America, V.1, Conifers. USDA Agriculture Handbook 654. Available: https://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/misc/ag_654/volume_1/pinus/pungens.htm, accessed 2025.03.27.

Dorman, Keith W. 1976. The genetics and breeding of southern pines. Washington, DC: USDA Agriculture Handbook 471. 407 p.

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Flatley, W. T., Lafon, C. W., Grissino-Mayer, H. D., and LaForest, L. B. 2013. Fire history, related to climate and land use in three southern Appalachian landscapes in the eastern United States. Ecological Applications 23(6):1250–1266. https://doi.org/10.1890/12-1752.1.

Frost, C. C. 1998. Presettlement fire frequency regimes of the United States: a first approximation. Pages 70-81 in Fire in ecosystem management: shifting the paradigm from suppression to prescription. Tall Timbers Fire Ecology Conference Proceedings, Tallahassee, Florida, USA.

Hack, John T., and John C. Goodlett. 1960. Geomorphology and forest ecology of a mountain region in the central Appalachians. U.S. Department of the Interior Geological Survey, Professional Paper 347. Reston, VA. 66 p.

Hepting, George H. 1971. Diseases of forest and shade trees of the United States. Washington DC: USDA Agriculture Handbook 386, 658 p.

Jin, W.-T., D. S. Gernandt, C. Wehenkel, X.-M. Xia, X.-X. Wei, and X.-Q. Wang. 2021. Phylogenomic and ecological analyses reveal the spatiotemporal evolution of global pines. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118:e2022302118.

Kelley, A. P. 1931. Occurrence of Pinus pungens Lamb. on the Atlantic Coastal Plain. Torreya 31(1):8.

Knebel, L., and Wentworth, T. R. 2007. Influence of fire and southern pine beetle on pine-dominated forests in the Linville Gorge Wilderness, North Carolina. Castanea 72(4):214–225. https://doi.org/10.2179/06-18.1.

Lafon, C. W., and M. Kutac. 2003. Effects of ice storms, southern pine beetle infestation, and fire on Table Mountain pine forests of southwestern Virginia. Physical Geography 24:502-519.

Lambert, A. B. 1805. On a new species of Pinus. Ann. Bot. (Koenig & Sims) 2:198.

Michaux, F.-A. 1810. Histoire des arbres forestiers de l'Amérique septentrionale. Paris, De l'Imprimerie de L. Haussmann et d'Hautel, M.D. Available: Biodiversity Heritage Library, accessed 2025.03.28.

Native American Ethnobotany Database. 2025. Results of search for the named species of Pinus. Available: http://naeb.brit.org/, accessed 2025.03.16.

Newell, C. L., and Peet, R. K. 1998. Vegetation of Linville Gorge Wilderness, North Carolina. Castanea 63(3):275–322.

Payne, J. (ed.). 2025. The 2024 Register of National Champion Trees. National Champion Tree Program, https://nationalchampiontree.org/.

Pederson, Neil. 2025. Eastern OLDLIST. https://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/olds/detail.cfm?genus=Pinus&species=pungens, accessed 2025.03.01.

[USFS] United States Forest Service. 2025. Climate Change Atlas, Table Mountain pine (Pinus pungens). (Forecasts for RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 emissions scenarios). https://www.fs.usda.gov/nrs/atlas/tree/123, accessed 2025.03.29.

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Waldrop, T. A., P. H. Brose, N. T. Welch, et al. 2002. High-intensity fires may be unnecessary for stand replacement Of Table Mountain pine: an overview of current research. Pages 137–142 in Proceedings of the eleventh biennial southern silvicultural research conference. Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS–48. Asheville, NC: USFS Southern Research Station.

Welch, N. T., T. A. Waldrop, and E. R. Buckner. 2000. Response of southern Appalachian table mountain pine (Pinus pungens) and pitch pine (P. rigida) stands to prescribed burning. Forest Ecology and Management 136:185–197.

Welch, N. T., and Waldrop, T. A. 2001. Restoring Table Mountain Pine (Pinus pungens Lamb.) communities with prescribed fire: an overview of current research. Castanea 66(1–2):42–49.

Williams, C. E. 1998. History and status of Table Mountain pine–pitch pine forests of the southern Appalachian Mountains (USA). Natural Areas Journal 18(1):81–90.

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