Today’s photograph is courtesy of Josh, aka joshbailey@Flickr, submitted via the group pool (original image). Josh photographed this in (or near) the Holkham National Nature Reserve in Norfolk, England. I chuckled when I saw the photograph as I’d taken something similar in intent recently without having first seen Josh’s image. I’ll save sharing mine for another year, perhaps. Thank you, Josh!
Corsican pine is a variety of the (European) black pine, Pinus nigra. While the species has a distribution range including much of southern Europe and parts of Asia Minor and north Africa, variety corsicana is restricted to the island of Corsica and parts of central Italy, according to the Gymnosperm Database entry on Pinus nigra subsp. salzmannii and its varieties. The always-excellent Gymnosperm Database also has a page on Pinus nigra for further reading (as does Wikipedia).
The identification of the pines in today’s photograph is courtesy of Michael F, frequent contributor to the UBC Botanical Garden Forums and commenter on BPotD.
Some extra notes – Corsican Pine is an important forestry plantation tree in England, grown for its timber, used for utility poles, construction work, etc.
This particular plantation (on the north Norfolk coast) was planted for timber some time before the land was designated as a nature reserve. While normally, an introduced species would not be wanted on a nature reserve, these trees have been retained as they provide good nesting and feeding habitat for a number of native species, and have not shown any tendency to be invasive.
This plantation hosted Britain’s sole record of a Red-breasted Nuthatch (from Canada), present from 13 October 1989 to 6 May 1990.
Pinus nigra – Z5 – RHS Index of Garden Plants, Griffiths
Pinus nigra – Z5-8 – A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants, Brickell, Cole, Zuk
Pinus nigra – All forms of P. nigra are excellent for maritime areas and are tolerant of most soils. It thrives better than any other in chalky soils and in bleak exposures and makes an excellent windbreak. Hillier Manual of Trees & Shrubs, 2003
Pinus nigra subsp. salzmannii is only hardy to zone 7, that’s one of the features (along with various aspects of leaf anatomy related to cold tolerance) that distinguishes it from subsp. nigra (which occurs in more continental climates further east with colder winters; hardy to zone 4-5).
very very morbid