Side by side
Scots pine or black pine? How to tell them apart
Pinus sylvestris · Pinus nigra
You can tell a Scots pine by its short, blue-green needles in pairs (3–7 cm) and its orange-red bark high up the trunk; a black pine has long, dark green needles of 8–16 cm and bark that stays grey right to the top.
Look up at the trunk: orange-red and flaky in the crown is always a Scots pine. Then measure a needle: shorter than your little finger and blue-green on the Scots pine, almost a hand’s width long and dark green on the black pine.
| Scots pine | Black pine | |
|---|---|---|
| Needles | Needles in 2s in a small sheath, 3–7 cm long, blue-green, stiff and often slightly twisted. | Needles in 2s, 8–16 cm, dark green, sturdy. In the Corsican form they are somewhat softer and twisted. |
| Flowering | – | – |
| Cones and seeds | Cones 3–7 cm, egg-shaped with a pointed tip, grey-brown; they only ripen in their second year. | Cones 5–8 cm, yellowish-brown and glossy, fairly symmetrical. |
| Bark | Grey-brown and deeply fissured at the base; strikingly orange-red in the crown, peeling in thin flakes. | Dark grey to blackish, fissured into long plates, even high up the trunk. |
| Shape and height | Conifer, 20–35 m | Conifer, 20–40 m |
| Site | Full sun, acid soil, dry | Full sun, any garden soil, dry |
| Native to Belgium | Yes | No, naturalised |
| Good for bees, butterflies and birds | Yes, for butterflies and birds | Yes, for birds |
| Poisonous to people and pets | Not known to be poisonous | Not known to be poisonous |
| Pruning months | May–June | May–June |
The best feature in each season
- Spring
- In May–June the new shoots stretch out like candles. Both release yellow pollen then, and small reddish female cones sit at the tips of the new shoots.
- Summer
- The crown helps: an old Scots pine has a tall, flat-topped crown on a long bare trunk, a black pine a dense, dark, rather rounded crown with heavy branches.
- Autumn
- Pick up a cone: on the Scots pine 3–7 cm, greyish brown and dull with a pointed tip; on the black pine 5–8 cm, yellowish brown, glossy and fairly symmetrical.
- Winter
- Both are evergreen, so the needles and the bark remain your best features. A black pine looks almost black-green in winter; a Scots pine has a blue-grey crown with an orange glow in the trunk.
Where do they grow?
The Scots pine is the pine of our sandy soils: the Campine, the Veluwe, heath edges and old pinewoods. The black pine comes from southern and central Europe and has naturalised; it was widely planted in the dunes, along the coast and as a windbreak, because it tolerates sea wind, salt, drought and chalk.
Which one for your garden?
- Both reach 20–40 m: too big for an ordinary garden. In a large garden on sand or at the edge of a heath, the native Scots pine is the best choice; on a windy, chalky or salty plot by the coast, the black pine makes a good windbreak.
- Prune little: pines do not regrow from old, bare wood. For a small garden there are slow, compact pines, such as the mountain pine.
Did you know? In the Campine the Scots pine was planted on a vast scale as pit props: its trunks shored up the tunnels of the Limburg coal mines.
Read on
- Plant profile: Scots pine
- Plant profile: Black pine
- Scots pine: when and how to prune
- Black pine: when and how to prune
- Identification key: the question that separates them