AusBonsai

Hi guys,
I collected this pine from the gutter of my back shed, it had been growing there for some before I moved in and noticed it. It had developed a perfectly radial root base so I rushed off to my local nursery and grabbed it a bonsai pot and it has been growing happily for months now. I have no knowledge of how to ID pines but I assume it is a very common variety spread from my adult pines and any help would be very much appreciated.

Thank you
Tristan

My guess is Radiata pine?

Looks a bit like a slash pine. Needles look too long for radaita

rodm wrote:Looks a bit like a slash pine. Needles look too long for radaita

I tend to agree, particularly given the location of the OP (North Qld), I vote for Slash Pine.

It is pretty easy to identify Pinus radiata. They have 3 needles in each cluster and I don't think there are any other 3 needle pines
I'm not familiar with Slash pine but I do know they grow up north.
Another pine that has long, weeping needles is Pinus patula - Mexican weeping pine - another species that I don't know very well.

shibui wrote:It is pretty easy to identify Pinus radiata. They have 3 needles in each cluster and I don't think there are any other 3 needle pines
I'm not familiar with Slash pine but I do know they grow up north.
Another pine that has long, weeping needles is Pinus patula - Mexican weeping pine - another species that I don't know very well.

After a closer inspection every needle appears to have three stalks per cluster which would mean more likely It is a Radiata than a slash pine (I don't believe it is a weeping pine either). I also read that Pinus Caribbaea also will grow with three needles per cluster and it is listed as an introduced plant in the Cairns region so I guess may be another possibility.

Ps. After measuring the full length needles regularly at about 25cm it would appear that Pinus Caribbaea is the likely culprit here.

I now see that there are quite a few 3 needle pine species Will need to remember that for future. I see that Slash pine is another 3 needle species with quite long needles but I guess the needles on yours seem to be longer than the description for slash pine.
Good job on working out a likely ID for the tree you have but you need to be aware that it is possible for individual plants to vary from the general description and for container grown plants to appear a little different. Young plants often have different characteristics from the mature species. To be sure of ID for many plant species you really need to see mature bark and/or flowers/seeds (cones in the case of pines)

It looks a lot like a young P montezumae. Beautiful tree but not for bonsai. Leaves look a bit long and wrong colour for patula.
One of the other tropical species is certainly a possibility.