The "little sister" pine

Species name: Pinus resinosa

Common name: Red pine, Norway pine

Location: Ontario

Surprisingly enough, the common name of this species is not reflective of its natural heritage. Sure, it's an economically important tree in Norway, but it certainly didn't originate there and more than likely wasn't first discovered there, either. The red pine is native to Canada and the northeastern United States, is the state tree of Minnesota, and is much smaller in almost every respect compared to the eastern white pine.

It is relatively uniform in its morphology, so you'll rarely see "exceptions" to the general shape, size, colour, and rate of maturation of any one member in a population. This would suggest that each member of the population is very genetically similar, and that each copy of each gene has few alleles (and perhaps only one allele expressed in two copies). How does this happen? Well, there's only one way: near extinction. This very concept has happened recently with the cheetah and also the eastern cougar. The populations are so genetically uniform that very strange genetic deformities are starting to appear more and more commonly in the population. In a "pristine" population, one that hadn't gone through a near-extinction event, genetic diseases are rare and you usually need two copies of a gene to express the disease. If you only had one copy, you would appear normal, and no copies you would appear normal and any children you had would also appear normal (since no matter what genes they get from your mate, you will be passing on one of your two normal copies of the gene to your children). Because an individual with one normal copy and one recessive copy appears normal, selection cannot act to "weed" that individual out of the population. If that individual mates with another individual that has one normal copy and one recessive copy of the gene, they have a 1/4 chance of having a child with the disease. The same thing happens in plants, but many plants can be what we call tetraploid; this means they have four copies of each gene instead of only two. You can see how this might be of great advantage in the plant kingdom; in order to show the effects of a recessive gene, you would need to have four copies of the gene instead of just two, which would occur much less commonly.

The presence of a large number of red pine trees in an area is usually indicative of a widespread natural disaster of some kind, usually a forest fire. Because they are incredibly intolerant of shade, they are often the first trees to colonize an area after fire. Contrary to popular belief, this isn't because the seeds require intense heat to open (which is the case in some other coniferous species). When you intensely burn an area it rapidly decomposes the dense organic layer on top of the soil which allows for easier seed penetration, it burns off insects that might eat the seeds or young saplings, it removes the competitive ability of understory trees and shrubs by killing all (or some) of them, and thins out the branches of the trees that make up the canopy. Fires provide optimal growth conditions for the red pine and other primary colonizing species that are shade intolerant.

The uses of the red pine include lumber, pulp and paper, and for landscaping purposes.

Eastern White Pine: Ontario's provincial tree

Species name: Pinus strobus

Common name: Eastern White Pine, White Pine, Wheymouth Pine

Location: Ontario

The Eastern White Pine is a native evergreen tree to Eastern Canada (Newfoundland to Manitoba), and has now been naturalized in the mountains of Poland and Czech Republic (naturalized meaning it is not native, but not out-competing native species). These trees are incredibly important in Canadian industry for timber and in the pulp and paper industry. They are the provincial tree of Ontario, and the state tree of Maine and Michigan. In the photo are the male or staminate cones, which are the cones that produce pollen. The pinecones that fall off the tree in the fall and are often used for decorative purposes are the female or carpellate cones which eventually produce the seeds. Staminate cones are the reason for many pollen allergies in the spring. These staminate cones are even the state flower of Maine!

Eastern White Pine trees were historically very susceptible to a fungus called the White Pine Blister Rust, which was introduced from either Asia or Europe during the 19th century. By the early 20th century the mortality of White Pines in some areas was as high as 80%. The Blister Rust is a fungus that requires an alternate host to complete its life cycle (in this case Ribes, or Gooseberry or Wild Currant). In the mid- to late-20th century, it was suggested by the US Department of Forest Pathology that if Ribes plants were removed from surrounding forest with White Pine, the disease can be controlled. This method was actually incredibly effective, and now mortality of "natural" pines (not ornamental pines, but those occurring naturally in forests) is about 3%. Now in New England in the US it is actually illegal in some locations to plant wild currant or wild gooseberry plants.

In the forestry industry, White Pines have historically been used to make masts for boats and some were even marked with a blue arrow as reserved for the British Royal Navy. This was a practice of great controversy in the US, leading eventually (at least contributing to) to the American Revolution. There are now more than just North American White Pines that are used as lumber to make masts of ships, should they be made of wood at all (most are now metal). Instead of growing trees for masts, we now grow pine plantations for Christmas trees and other lumber/pulp/paper purposes (building materials, furniture, carving, etc.). The sap of the White Pine is purified to make turpentine.

Surprisingly enough, White Pine trees are also used for food and as medicine by some native North American people. Pine needles themselves contain about five times the amount of Vitamin C as lemons (the typical Vitamin C benchmark), and make a great "Vitamin C tea." The cambium of the tree (the fast-reproduicing cells that produce the wood and inner bark of the tree) is commonly eaten by the Algonquin people. It is a good source of a chemical called resveratrol which has been touted as the "new cure" for just about everything that affects humans from diabetes to cancer. It has shown some promise as a chemical that will significantly reduce blood sugar as a potential treatment and/or cure for diabetes, but only in extremely high doses. The only human trial that has shown this was sponsored by a drug company, so any results that come from it have to be taken with a grain of salt. Other medicinal uses of this tree: as an anti-microbial agent used to treat gangrene by the Chippewa, and using the residue of slowly burning branches and roots as a treatment for dandruff.