Table Mountain Pine

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{{Taxobox | color = lightgreen | name = Table Mountain Pine | status = Conservation status: Secure | image = Pinus_pungens_drawing.png | image_width = 240px | regnum = Plantae | divisio = Pinophyta | classis = Pinopsida | ordo = Pinales | familia = Pinaceae | genus = Pinus | subgenus = Pinus | species = P. pungens | binomial = Pinus pungens | binomial_authority = Lamb. }}

The Table Mountain Pine (Pinus pungens) is a small pine native to the Appalachian Mountains in the United States. It is a tree of modest size (6-12 m), and has a rounded, irregular shape. The needles are in bundles of two, occasionally three, yellow-green to mid green, fairly stout, and 4-7 cm long.The pollen is released early compared to other pines in the area to minimize hybridization. The cones are very short-stalked (almost sessile), ovoid, pale pinkish to yellowish buff, and 4-9 cm long; each scale bears a stout, sharp spine 4-10 mm long. Sapling trees can bear cones in a little as 5 years.

This pine prefers dry conditions and is mostly found on rocky slopes, preferring higher elevations, from 300-1760 m altitude. It commonly grows as single scattered trees or small groves, not in large forests like most other pines, and needs periodic disturbances for seedling establishment. It is the Lonesome Pine of the 1912 song by Ballard MacDonald, popularised in the Laurel and Hardy film Way out West:
On the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia
On the Trail of the Lonesome Pine
Several "Lonesome Pine" hiking trails have been waymarked in the Blue Ridge Mountains and elsewhere in the Appalachians.

Table Mountain pine is also called Hickory Pine or Mountain Pine, though the latter name usually refers to the European species Pinus mugo.

Reference

• A. Farjon & M. P. Frankis, 2002. Pinus pungens. Curtis's Botanical Magazine 19: 97-103.pl:Sosna kłująca