The Scots Pine is a native Irish conifer tree
THE Scots Pine grows widely throughout Europe and Asia. Its distribution range extends eastwards from western Europe to the eastern extremity of Russia, northwards to Scandinavia and southwards to the chain of mountains stretching from the Pyrenees and Alps to the Balkans in central Bulgaria.
Where the tree thrives, it often forms dense forests, an outstanding example being the old Caledonian pine forest of the Scottish Highlands where the species is the dominant tree; hence its name and its special link to Scotland.
Pines are a family of evergreen trees distinguished by their scaly buds, the structure of their cones and the way their needle-like leaves are borne spirally. The number of needles is always two, three or five. Scot’s Pine is a two-needle species.
It used to be believed that Scots Pine was not native to Ireland and that our pine trees were all imported from Scotland. From research carried out by scientists based in Trinity College Dublin we now know that that Scots Pine is native to Ireland and was living here thousands of years before the any trees were imported from Scotland.
It is now believed that the Scots Pine was one of the first trees to colonise Ireland after the last ice age. As a result of climate change, some of the original pine forests were engulfed by peat. Stumps of very old trees have been discovered in Co Clare preserved in bogs. However, for some reason, many of the natives died out as the years passed, and fresh stock was imported from our Gaelic neighbours.
When the trees are young they have a conical, Christmas-tree shape with branches to ground level but as they grow old the lower branches die off leaving a bare trunk with the upper branches forming a flat crown as shown in the image above.
Scots Pine produces cones, so it is a conifer or cone-bearer, one of only three natives conifers found in Ireland, the other two being Juniper and Yew. Pines were the original Christmas trees, and their cones are still a popular Christmas decoration.
The wood of the Scots Pine is widely used in building and is known as ‘deal’. The wood of spruce trees is also known as deal so to avoid confusion the better quality wood of the Scots Pine is marketed as ‘red deal’ whereas spruce wood, which is widely used, is sold as ‘white deal’ as it is whiter in colour.