Trees to 23m; trunk to 0. diam.; crown spirelike. Bark gray, thin, smooth, in age often becoming broken into irregular brownish scales. Branches diverging from trunk at right angles, the lower often spreading and drooping; twigs mostly opposite, greenish brown, pubescence sparse. Buds hidden by leaves or exposed, brown, conic, small, resinous, apex acute; basal scales short, broad, nearly equilaterally triangular, glabrous, resinous, margins entire, apex sharp-pointed. Leaves 1.2--2. ´ 1.5--2mm, 1-ranked (particularly on lower branches) to spiraled, flexible; cross section flat, grooved adaxially; odor pinelike (copious ß-pinene); abaxial surface with (4--)6--7(--8) stomatal rows on each side of midrib; adaxial surface dark green, slightly or not glaucous, with 0--3 stomatal rows at midleaf, these more numerous toward leaf apex; apex slightly notched to rounded; resin canals large, ± median, away from margins, midway between abaxial and adaxial epidermal layers. Pollen cones at pollination red, purplish, bluish, greenish, or orange. Seed cones cylindric, 4--7 ´ 1.5--3cm, gray-purple, turning brown before scale shed, sessile, apex round to obtuse; scales ca. 1--l.5 ´ 0.7--1. (relationship reversed in more western collections), pubescent; bracts included or exserted and reflexed over scales. Seeds 3--6 ´ 2--3mm, body brown; wing about twice as long as body, brown-purple; cotyledons ca. 4. 2 n =24.
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Spire-topped tree to 25 m, the gray bark eventually becoming scaly; twigs minutely hairy; lvs 12–25 mm; blunt or minutely notched, twisted at the base and tending to lie in one plane; cones 5–10 cm, with broadly rounded, appressed scales; bracts stipitate, the blade quadrate to rotund, mucronate to aristate, included or occasionally shortly exserted, but only rarely exceeding the subtended scale, the exserted part, when present, sometimes spreading, but not reflexed. Moist woods and swamps; Nf. and Lab. to the Mackenzie Valley, s. to N.Y., Mich., Minn., and in the mts. to W.Va. and n. Va.
A tree shaped like a cone. It grows 15 m high and spreads 5 m across. The bark is smooth and grey. There are resin blisters on the bark. The leaves are dark green but whitish underneath. The leaves are 1.5-2.5 cm long. They are densely arranged in the shoots in a V shape. The cones are oblong and purple. They are 5-8 cm long.