Early explorers who were not botanists mistook this tree for Norway spruce, and gave it the name which has since remained in nearly all parts of its range. It is called red pine also, and this name is strictly descriptive. The brown or red color of the bark is instantly noticed by one who sees the tree for the first time. In the Lake States it has been called hard pine for the purpose of distinguishing it from the softer white pine with which it is associated. In England they call it Canadian red pine, because the principal supply in England is imported from the Canadian provinces.
Its chief range lies in the drainage basin of the St. Lawrence river, which includes the Great Lakes and the rivers which flow into them. Newfoundland forms the eastern and Manitoba the western outposts of this species. It is found as far south as Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, northern Ohio, central Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. It conforms pretty generally to the range of white pine but does not accompany that species southward along the Appalachian mountain ranges across West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Where it was left to compete in nature’s way with white pine, the contest was friendly, but white pine got the best of it. The two species grew in intermixture, but in most instances white pine had from five to twenty trees to Norway’s one. As a survivor under adversity, however, the Norway pine appears to surpass its great friendly rival, at least in the Lake States where the great pineries once flourished and have largely passed away. Solitary or small clumps of Norway pines are occasionally found where not a white pine, large or small, is in sight.
The forest appearance of Norway pine resembles the southern yellow pines. The stand is open, the trunks are clean and tall, the branches are at the top. The Norway’s leaves are in clusters of two, and are five or six inches long. They fall during the fourth or fifth year. Cones are two inches long, and when mature, closely resemble the color of the tree’s bark, that is, light chestnut brown. Exceptionally tall Norway pines may reach a height of 150 feet, but the average is seventy or eighty, with diameters of from two to four. Young trees are limby, but early in life the lower branches die and fall, leaving few protruding stubs or knots. It appears to be a characteristic that trunks are seldom quite straight. They do not have the plumb appearance of forest grown white pine and spruce.