Hi beng, I doubt any of the hard pines are grafted on Pinus virginiana, understock would probably sprout profusely!

im impressed... it isnt often you see one that old ... thx for the pix ..

as mine age.. i long for the days of the young babe .. as compared to the ugly old mantree .... lol ... or old womantree if you insist ....

i used to love me concolor candicans ... then it got to about 15 feet.. and i swear to god.. its one of the ugliest trees in the garden ... if i cared at all .. i would put it out of my misery ...

ken

Well ken, Virginia pine isn't called scrub pine for nothing. But I like 'em -- they're a tough colonizer on the worst sites in my area, able to do so better than any other tree. Ocassionally I find large, old, battered specimens that have a rustic beauty. Here's a couple pics:

Yes, maackia, I see chickadees & nuthatches probing into their many cones for seeds.

I would imagine it's the same out your way ben, the American red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) spends a good part of the winter breaking apart the serotinous cones of the P. banksiana and most other conifers. You can hear them pounding the cones on the branches and find the cone scales scattered close to where they were workng.

The common name around here is 'Pine Squirrel' (not to be confused with other red squirrels, this one is much smaller). :-)

Bill, and hence Table Mountain pine's sharp claws and almost-impossible to remove cones to "discourage" squirrels from doing that.

Oh, those 'claws' don't deter the ARS at all. :-)

Page down to: 'IMPORTANCE TO LIVESTOCK AND WILDLIFE:'

https://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/plants/tree/pinpun/all.html

Thanks. Good start-page for that site is below:

https://www.feis-crs.org/feis/faces/SearchByOther.xhtml

I'm not saying the site I posted is the end all of knowledge, just that those little squirrels are experts at what they do and they do it well. :-)