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pinetree30

Pinus pinea naturalizing in California

pinetree30
17 years ago

Have any of the California residents or visitors on this site ever seen umbrella pine (Italian stone pine) regenerating naturally in this state? It is frequently planted but usually on manicured lawns where seedlings cannot survive.

I have been observing heavy regen in a weedy place along a highway that is not tended by the roads people. Trees vary, I am guessing, from 2 to 15 years old, and have seeded from a line of trees bordering a K-Mart store in Placerville, CA, about 1,800 ft. elevation in the Sierra Nevada foothills. The planted trees are to about 25 ft. tall -- I don't know their ages. All the trees and seedlings are inaccessible by presence of a chain-link fence I cannot climb. Some "seedlings" are now cone bearing, so I suspect "grandchildren" are being born. Many are well outside the crown projections of larger trees, so I suspect seeds are being cached by the very common scrub jays here. The small trees are not at all hemispherical in crown shape as they are in the south of France, even under older trees.

I'll eventually try to infiltrate the area somehow, to get better data.

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