Japanese White Pine

The Japanese white pine (Pinus parviflora) is a pine in the white pine group, Pinus subgenus Strobus, native to Japan. It is also known as the Japanese five-needle pine (Pinus pentaphylla).

It is a coniferous evergreen tree, growing to 15–25 m in height and is usually as broad as it is tall, forming a wide, dense, conical crown. The leaves are needle-like, in bundles of five, with a length of 5–6 cm. The cones are 4–7 cm long, with broad, rounded scales; the seeds are 8–11 mm long, with a vestigial 2–10 mm wing.

This is a popular tree for bonsai, and is also grown as an ornamental tree in parks and gardens. The 'Adcock's dwarf' has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.

Famous quotes containing the words japanese, white and/or pine:

    A pragmatic race, the Japanese appear to have decided long ago that the only reason for drinking alcohol is to become intoxicated and therefore drink only when they wish to be drunk.
    So I went out into the night and the neon and let the crowd pull me along, walking blind, willing myself to be just a segment of that mass organism, just one more drifting chip of consciousness under the geodesics.
    William Gibson (b. 1948)

    The Thirties dreamed white marble and slipstream chrome, immortal crystal and burnished bronze, but the rockets on the Gernsback pulps had fallen on London in the dead of night, screaming. After the war, everyone had a car—no wings for it—and the promised superhighway to drive it down, so that the sky itself darkened, and the fumes ate the marble and pitted the miracle crystal.
    William Gibson (b. 1948)

    Before I finally went into winter quarters in November, I used to resort to the north- east side of Walden, which the sun, reflected from the pitch pine woods and the stony shore, made the fireside of the pond; it is so much pleasanter and wholesomer to be warmed by the sun while you can be, than by an artificial fire. I thus warmed myself by the still glowing embers which the summer, like a departed hunter, had left.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)