Dwarf Siberian pine is a low, sprawling five-needle pine that carpets mountain slopes above the in northeast Asia. It's native to eastern Siberia, the Russian Far East, northeast China, Korea, and northern Japan, not to the US. In American gardens it's grown as a slow, compact ornamental shrub.
Appearance
- Growth form
- An evergreen shrub usually 3–10 ft (1–3 m) tall, occasionally up to 16 ft (5 m), with many branches spreading along the ground.
- Leaves
- Needles in bundles of five, about 1½–2½ in (4–6 cm) long.
- Fruit
- Small cones about 1–2 in (2.5–5 cm) long, holding large, nutlike, wingless seeds.
Look-alikes
Mugo pinePinus mugo
Count the needles in a bundle: mugo pine has needles in pairs, while dwarf Siberian pine has them in fives.
Why they get mixed upBoth are low, shrubby mountain pines sold as compact garden conifers.
Where it lives
- Typical habitats
- Above the tree line
- Windy ridges
- Coastal headlands
- Range
- Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East, northeastern Mongolia and China, Korea, and northern Japan. It also grows on coastal headlands. It doesn't grow wild in the US.
- Preferred conditions
- Cold, exposed sites above the tree line, where it often forms dense thickets.
Behavior
- Activity
- Very slow-growing and long-lived: plants can reach about 300 years, and in some cases about 1,000.
Life cycle
- Seed dispersal
- Spotted nutcrackers harvest and cache the seeds, spreading the pine.
Growing it
- Care
- In gardens it usually stays under 4 ft (1.2 m). The selection 'Jeddeloh' is rated hardy in 3–8.
Conservation
- IUCN Red List
- LCLeast ConcernLow risk of extinction
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