Corsican Pine

Pinus nigra subsp. laricio Maire

Native Range: From Sicily, Corsica and southern mainland Italy, westwards through Southern Europe.

Introduced into the British Isles as a tree for forestry and parkland in 1759.

• A commercially important tree but problems with a disease called ‘Red Band Needle Blight’ have led to a decline in the numbers being planted.
• Corsican Pine plantations are known to support a high number of invertebrate species, beetles and hoverflies. The Bordered White Moth (Bupalus piniana L.) is particularly associated with Corsican Pine in the British Isles.
• Pinus nigra is considered an invasive species in New Zealand where plantation trees have seeded into surrounding habitats shading out native grasses and plants.

Glasgow Botanic Gardens has a large and varied collection of pines from around the world such as Pinus wallichiana (Bhutan Pine) which grows wild across the Himalayas. It is sometimes used to produce turpentine.

There is a pine collection in the arboretum with lots of interesting specimens including Pinus coulteri native to California and Pinus ponderosa (Western Yellow Pine) collected by David Douglas in 1826 in eastern Washington State.

Royal Forestry Society at www.rfs.org.uk

UKMoths at UKMoths.org.uk

Eckenwalder, J. (2009) Conifers of the World, Timber Press