Eastern White Pine

The Eastern White Pine, Pinus Strobus, is so common around the lake that it's easy to gloss it over. You know how it is, to look towards the unusual while the inherent beauty and complexity of the common goes unnoticed. In fact, this post began as combined with the Red Pine, but that's now for another day.

Here's what I think is a second year cone. I didn't know that cones take two years to mature!


Here's bud growth from over a week ago.


And this was from yesterday.


I include the shot below to illustrate how those five little bud branches above become next year's branches that each host their own batch of five bud branches. And, each batch of needles is in groups of five.