Pine, Turkish (Calabrian)

The Turkish Pine in Turkish it is called the ‘red pine’ or Kizilçam. Other names include East Mediterranean pine and Calabrian pine. ‘Calabrian’ is most commonly used, however it is not native to this southern part of Italy. This tree can be found in Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus, Crete, eastern Aegean islands, and possibly the extreme NE of the Greek mainland.

The Turkish pine is a tree to 27-35 m, with a usually open crown of irregular branches. The BARK on the lower trunk is thick, scaly, fissured, patterned red-brown and buff, and thin, flaky and orange-red higher in the crown. The SHOOTS are slender, 3-7 mm thick, grey-buff, and rough with persistent small decurrent scale-leaf bases. The winter buds are ovoid-acute, with red-brown scales with long free tips revolute and fringed with white hairs.

The adult LEAVES are retained for 1.5-2.5 years, with a persistent 1-1.5 cm sheath; on most trees they are in fascicles of two, and 10-18 cm long. They are bright green to yellow-green, slender, about 1mm thick, with serrulate margins, fine lines of stomata on both faces, and several marginal resin canals. The juvenile leaves are glaucous, 1.5-4 cm long, and continue to be grown for 2-4 years, mixed with the first adult foliage produced from 9 months from seed

The CONES are erect to forward pointing on short stout stalks, symmetrical, broad conic, (4-)6-10(-12) cm long, 4-5 cm broad when closed, green, ripening shiny red-brown in April two years after pollination. They open the same summer or 1-2 years later, to 5-8 cm broad, though the SEEDS are often not shed till winter rain softens the scales. The scales are short, broad, thick, woody, and very stiff; the apophysis is 10-15 x 15-20 mm, smoothly rounded, with a slight to moderate transverse ridge; the umbo is dorsal, flat to slightly raised, 5-7mm wide, and grey-buff. The seeds are grey-brown, 7-8 × 5mm with a broad, auricled 15-20 × 10 mm wing, yellow-buff streaked darker brown.

Known as ‘pitys’ to the ancient Greeks, this is the most important forest tree in the north-eastern Mediterranean area. A sap-sucking insect Marchalina hellenica produces large amounts of honey-dew, harvested by honeybees and sold as ‘pine honey’. Pinus brutia was planted outside its native range in Greece from early times for this harvest (G. Schiller, 1993, pers. comm. to M. P. Frankis). Some trees have cones which do not open widely even after prolonged weathering, so the seeds are incapable of normal wind dispersal. This form is probably dispersed by Krüper’s Nuthatch Sitta krueperi (Frankis 1992).