Jack pine (Pinus banksiana): how to identify it

Red pine vs jack pine, and white pine vs jack pine

All three are native to the Great Lakes states and Ontario, and people search for each pairing. The needle bundle settles all of them, and the cone confirms. Data from Virginia Tech's fact sheets for jack pine, red pine and eastern white pine.

Red pine vs jack pine. Both are two-needle pines, so compare length and feel. A red pine needle is about four times as long as a jack pine needle, and it breaks in half when you bend it. Red pine cones are straight and smooth to the touch; jack pine cones are curved and prickly, and they hang on unopened.

White pine vs jack pine. There is nothing to weigh here once you count: five needles means white pine. From a distance, an old white pine is a tall, straight tree with long horizontal branches; a jack pine of the same age is shorter and rougher.

For red pine and white pine side by side, including Norway pine and their wood, see red pine vs white pine.

Jack pine vs lodgepole pine and Scots pine

Lodgepole pine is jack pine's western counterpart. Virginia Tech gives it two twisted needles 1 1/2 to 3 inches long, yellow-green to green, and cones 1 to 2 inches that are often asymmetrical and lumpy near the base, with a short spine on each scale, and that may stay closed for several years. So the cone shape (lopsided rather than curved) and the longer needles separate them. The Forest Service notes that the two species meet in central and northwestern Alberta and in parts of Saskatchewan, where natural hybrids, Pinus × murraybanksiana, occur.

Scots pine is the European two-needle pine planted in yards, windbreaks and Christmas tree farms across the jack pine's range, and Virginia Tech lists the two as look-alikes. Scots pine needles are stout, twisted and blue-green, 1 1/2 to 3 inches long, and its cones are straight, egg-shaped and slightly stalked. The giveaway is the bark: Scots pine's upper trunk always shows orange, peeling bark. See the Scots pine page for the rest.

Closed cones and fire

Jack pine's cones explain where it grows. Over much of the range they are serotinous, held shut with resin and full of seed. The Forest Service reports that many stay closed until fire, strong heat near the ground, wind breakage or logging exposes them. In dry weather at or above 80 °F (27 °C), up to half the cones on the sunny side of the crown may open, and very cold winters, at −50 °F or below, can open them too. In the southern part of the range, cones open normally.

After a fire, the released seed lands on bare mineral soil, and jack pine comes back as a pioneer. The Forest Service notes that most older stands seem to have started after fires. This cycle matters for a bird: the endangered Kirtland's warbler nests in dense young jack pine stands about 5 to 20 feet tall, roughly 7 to 20 years old.

Where jack pine grows

Jack pine is mostly a Canadian tree. Its northern edge runs east from the Mackenzie River in the Northwest Territories, and it reaches Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia. It was the Northwest Territories' tree symbol until 1999, when Canadian Heritage records that the tamarack replaced it. In the United States it grows in Maine, New Hampshire and northern New York, and in the Lake States: Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota hold the largest areas, with outliers in extreme northwest Indiana and northeast Illinois.

Look for it on sandy soils, sand plains and thin soil over granite; it even grows over permafrost. Stands begin to break up after about 60 to 80 years, though the Forest Service reports vigorous 185-year-old trees in northwestern Minnesota and a 230-year-old tree east of Lake Nipigon in Ontario. The Ontario tree identification guide places it among the province's other conifers.

If the branches are high, a photo of a fallen cone or a needle bundle in Tree Identifier gives you a name to check. Jack pine is not one of the 138 species in the app's Collection, while eastern white pine and Scots pine are; whichever name you get, count and measure the needles yourself.