That was my first thought when I saw it. 'Scots pine'

Thanks!

Any cones to see?

Foliage shown is very typical of P. sylvestris.

No cones, it was a small tree. I suspected sylvestris, but I always have a hard time with pine ID's. Also, I rarely see sylvestris growing wild around here.

P. sylvestris has naturalized in many areas of New England and midAtlantic, the upper midwest and in some other parts of the US. Here's a map of where it's been confirmed as established on its own; the dark blue means exotic and present somewhere in the state, the more tourquoise is where exotic and present in the county.

Our forestry dept. used to offer them for bulk plantings. Don't know how well they did but you do see some around the countryside. P. resinosa is the dominant player around my neck of the woods.

Scots pine was used for reforestation in this state too. I liked these plantings-now largely mature trees-and was dismayed some years back to see our DNR eliminating many of these stands in state-owned properties. Then I learned that Scots pine enables pathogens to infect our commercially important red pine resource in this state, so now, I no longer have the love for Scots pine. Still see some good ones around, but for example...would not plant any up at my land, where red pine is important. Bill, I'm almost certain MN would have dropped this tree from its offerings also. Same issues affect forests in both states largely.

Yup, tom, I don't see it offered anymore on the web site. Didn't know about the pathogen thing but did notice that you don't see any plantations around here anymore. I never thought that the Scots did as good as the Reds and the reds do very well here, so don't know why they thought that P. sylvestris was such a good idea in the first place. They are a nice looking tree.

I have one scot that I know of, planted many years ago near the road that runs on the west end of my land. The 'Farm Boss' and I may have to pay it a visit now that I know the down side of them. :)

There was a big, prb'ly state-sponsored planting of Scots pines that ran for several miles along Rt 77/64 near Beckley, WV. Certainly many thousands of trees nearly mature. But this was back in the 1990s, so don't know how that planting has fared.

I see Scots pine establishing itself along sandy beaches in this state's Lake Michigan coastline. I love the site of volunteer plants, so long as they are not known invasive entities, and so it was that i was able to observe Scots pines coming up in sand dunes at this state's Point Beach State Forest. I admire the tenacity of any plant able to get up and grow in pure beach sand. And grow they do! But knowing of the pathogen issue, I can't support any more large Scots pine plantings. I don't know that i'd quite go to the extent of eliminating that one tree-that you like. But I would not support large-scale plantings of this species and I too marvel at the apparent thought on somebody's part that such species as Pinus strobus, Pinus resinosa, etc. were insufficient and that a Eurasian pine species needed to be brought here. Weird. White pine and red pine both outperform Scots pine here. Why was it brought here? We had an entire state full of giant white pines. Why did this tree need to be brought over here? But we've got it now.

' Why was it brought here?' no doubt there was an exchange of cash for the deal.

tom, if you don't think my solitary scot will be a problem, I'll just leave it. It's not a very big tree even after all this time....

Yeah, that's not a problem. It's where there are large-scale Scots pine plantings in close proximity to large and commercially important red pine stands, not individual trees here and there.