Japanese black pine plated bark?

[damienw133]

Hi all,

I was just wondering if anyone was aware of any Japanese black pine varieties that reliably produce the vaguely hexagonal plated bark you see on mature trees (mostly in Japan)?

I've noticed some trees seem much more inclined toward longitudinal fissures rather than plates with many of the corkbark varieties seeming to fall into that category whilst other trees i've come across seem to lean more toward plated bark.

I was just thinking it'd be rather handy to know if there are any reliable 'barking' varieties to keep an eye out for rather than having to take a gamble and wait 10 or 20 years to find out what your tree wants to do...."

Cheers!

[TimS]

Let me preface this by saying I’m very far from an expert, or even deeply knowledgable on pines, but from what I have come to understand you definitely will not see the plated bark in 10 years, and I doubt you’ll have made any real headway even in 20 years...50 maybe.

Hard to say about specific varieties given its originated from imported material decades ago, so it hasn’t been cultivated from known material with specific characteristics that could be traced back. The nursery material we see is not like you could go “This is a scion taken from that tree over there with x characteristics I like’

There is a rough bark variety in Japan but no idea if it is here in any form, and who’s to say what trees/ cultivars entered Australia back in the days when it was possible to just carry a pine onto a plane and walk it straight into the country. Is our ‘Pinus thunbergii’ actually the straight species, or a spin off from decades of genetic selection in Japan of seedlings for better characteristics than the wild trees? I have no idea about the specialist dwarf and compact forms as I believe they have not been around long enough to have developed that far yet.

I guess in theory they will eventually all develop some kind of plating. It might be for the next generation or two to enjoy if you’re starting with young material though.

This is just what I understand though, I’m totally happy to be contradicted by those with far more knowledge on pines than me though!

[damienw133]

Damn, i'd been mildly expecting but afraid that might be the case...
I knew it was dangerous to spend too much time swooning over centuries old japanese trees!

[TimS]

Trees don’t grow on a human lifespan time scale sadly! Pines can live over 1000 years, they won’t throw on 250 year old bark in a few decades no matter how much we plead with them to.