Turkish Pine

Appearance

''Pinus brutia'' is a medium-size tree, reaching 20–35 metres tall with a trunk diameter of up to 1 m , exceptionally 2 m . The bark is orange-red, thick and deeply fissured at the base of the trunk, and thin and flaky in the upper crown. The leaves are in pairs, slender, mostly 10–16 centimetres long, bright green to slightly yellowish green.

The cones are stout, heavy and hard, 6–11 cm long and 4–5 cm broad at the base when closed, green at first, ripening glossy red-brown when 24 months old. They open slowly over the next year or two to release the seeds, opening to 5–8 cm broad. The seeds are 7–8 millimetres long, with a 15–20 mm wing, and are mainly wind-dispersed. One can see from gallery below in Flowers image, that this pine is not ''white pine'' classification, as it clearly has two , meaning it is either a ''red'' or ''jack pine''.

Distribution

The bulk of its range is in Turkey, but it also extends to southeasternmost Bulgaria, the East Aegean Islands of Aegean Sea, Crete, Crimea, Iran, Georgia, Azerbaijan, northern Iraq, western Syria, Lebanon and Cyprus. It generally occurs at low altitudes, mostly from sea level to 600 m , up to 1,200 m in the south of its range.

Habitat

The bulk of its range is in Turkey, but it also extends to southeasternmost Bulgaria, the East Aegean Islands of Aegean Sea, Crete, Crimea, Iran, Georgia, Azerbaijan, northern Iraq, western Syria, Lebanon and Cyprus. It generally occurs at low altitudes, mostly from sea level to 600 m , up to 1,200 m in the south of its range.''Pinus brutia'' is a diagnostic species of the vegetation class ''Pinetea halepensis''.

The Krüper's nuthatch, a rare nuthatch, is largely restricted to forests of Turkish pine and depends heavily on it for feeding; the ranges of the two species are largely coincident.

''P. brutia'' is resistant to the Israeli pine bast scale insect ''Matsucoccus josephi'' and is a major host for ''Thaumetopoea'' caterpillars.

The species covers 175,000 hectares in Cyprus, roughly ~90% of all woodland coverage on the island. It forms ectomycorrhizal associations with numerous species of fungi, and its logs and branches are excellent substrates for many kinds of decomposing organisms.