Pinus armandii Seeds | Armand Pine
LATIN NAME: Pinus armandii
COMMON NAME: Armand Pine
Plant Profile
Needles are gathered in bundles of five, which places the species in the white pine group, and they hang loosely with a gentle curve that gives the crown a noticeably softer outline than a two-needle pine. The sheath at the base of each bundle is soon shed. The cones follow the pattern of the group: long, cylindrical, held upright or slightly forward on the branch, and slow to ripen over two seasons. What distinguishes the species is the seed, which is large, hard-shelled and effectively without a wing, so it drops beneath the parent tree rather than spinning away on the wind.
The main population runs along the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau, where it forms forests with other conifers between the oak belt and the treeline. Far to the east, an isolated race in the Dabie Mountains has been treated both as a variety and as a species of its own, and a third form in the mountains of Taiwan is usually listed as a variety. These scattered outliers are a reminder that the species was once more continuous than it is now, and foresters treat each as a separate seed source with its own tolerance of climate.
A dwarf mistletoe specific to this region attacks Armand pine in the mountains of Sichuan and north-western Yunnan, sending root-like strands into the bark and stimulating the tree to produce dense, abnormal clusters of shoots known as witches’ brooms. Heavy infection reduces cone crops and eventually kills branches. The parasite is spread by its sticky seed, which is fired from the fruit, so thinning infected trees from a stand is the usual control in managed forest. Sooty bark disease and stem rusts also take their share in dense stands.
Science & Biotechnology
Armand pine is one of the pines tapped for oleoresin in south-western China. Workers cut a series of slanting channels into the bark of standing trees and collect the gum that bleeds out, and the resin is then steam-distilled into turpentine and rosin. The volatile fraction is dominated by alpha-pinene and beta-pinene, the same monoterpenes that give all pine turpentine its characteristic smell and solvent properties, and the non-volatile rosin goes into adhesives, inks and paper sizing. Selection of better tapping trees is an active line of forestry research on the plateau.
Uses & Benefits
The oil pressed from pine seeds has a fatty acid that is unusual in the plant world. Pinolenic acid is a polyunsaturated acid with a double bond in a position that most seed oils do not use, and it is characteristic of the pines that produce edible nuts. In the gut it triggers the release of a satiety hormone, a finding that has been followed up in studies on appetite and food intake. Armand pine seed oil carries it in quantity, and the same oil is pleasant on its own as a light, slightly resinous nut oil.
Consumers occasionally report a metallic, bitter taste that begins after eating pine nuts and fades over the following days without any lasting effect. The complaint was tracked to particular batches in international trade and became known as pine mouth, and the nuts implicated have chiefly come from a small number of pine species rather than from the best-known nuts of Korea and the Mediterranean. It is not an allergy, it does not respond to treatment, and it has been a real commercial problem for buyers who cannot tell one shelled pine nut from another.
Growing from Seed
The cones are produced in small whorls, often two or three together, and they are heavy with resin. Each cone scale carries a raised plate at its tip but no sharp prickle, unlike the spined cones of many two- and three-needle pines, which makes the ripe cones easier to gather by hand. Seed crops are irregular and vary widely between mountains and between years, and in good years the ground under a mature tree can be swept clear of cones by local collectors before the tree’s own regeneration would ever use them.
Armand pine seed is heavy and keeps well if stored cool and dry, but it needs a cold, moist period before it will sprout. Sow in autumn in a deep bed or keep the seed damp and cold and sow in late winter, setting each seed about its own depth into a gritty, lime-free mix. The seedling grows a long taproot almost at once, so deep containers and prompt planting out are important. As a white pine it depends on ectomycorrhizal fungi for healthy growth, and adding soil or litter from under an established pine greatly improves establishment.
Our Take
I plant this for the texture of the crown and the scent of the resin rather than for the nuts, which need a warm, long season to fill properly. Give it deep soil, full sun and space for the lower branches to sweep the ground. If you like white pines, compare it with Pinus koraiensis, the Korean stone pine that supplies the fat nuts of north-east Asia, and with Pinus cembra, the slow alpine five-needle species for cold gardens. Pinus gerardiana is the other great nut pine of Asia and is worth growing where summers are hot and dry.
Related Reading
More species in the same orbit as Armand Pine: