Pine is the common name for species of the genus Pinus, a group of coniferous gymnosperms in the family Pinaceae characterized by needle-like evergreen leaves borne in fascicles, woody seed cones, and resin canals. Members of Pinus exhibit secondary growth with distinct earlywood–latewood transitions, produce winged seeds typically dispersed by wind or animals, and synthesize terpenoid-rich oleoresins involved in defense and xylem protection. The genus is ecologically dominant in many temperate and boreal forests, shows diverse adaptations to fire and nutrient-poor soils, and is widely used as a model for studies of conifer physiology, forest ecology, and long-lived perennial life histories.
What can the world's longest living individual teach us about longevity? A team of scientists coordinated by the University of California, Davis, sequenced the Great Basin bristlecone pine genome, which could help unlock ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 23, 2026
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University of Alberta researchers have, for the first time, captured a much better view of what may be contributing to failures in lodgepole pine seed orchards—a tree essential to Alberta's forest industry. The researchers ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 3, 2026
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New research led by a University of Oregon ecologist suggests that fire was historically more frequent in the Douglas fir forests of the western Oregon Cascade Range than previously believed.
Plants & Animals
Feb 3, 2026
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For thousands of years, one tree species defined the cultural and ecological identity of what is now the American South: the longleaf pine. The forest once stretched across 92 million acres from Virginia to Texas, but about ...
Ecology
Jan 27, 2026
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Vast swaths of the ponderosa pine forests that blanket Colorado's Front Range mountains could turn rust-colored and die over the next five years as pine beetles begin to spread aggressively, new federal forecasts show.
Plants & Animals
Dec 29, 2025
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A profound unraveling is underway in the American Southwest, happening across a thousand-mile arc from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to the central Sierra. In an unprecedented calamity, the most widely distributed, most iconic tree ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 9, 2025
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