Pinus strobus, the Weymouth or Eastern White Pine.

There are at least two trees of the Weymouth (aka Eastern White) Pine, Pinus strobus, in Cobtree Manor Park, one between the elephant house and the pond, and one, somewhat healthier, above the wooden ring structure in the next compartment.

The foliage of both trees appeared fairly yellowish and there is very little to be seen on the lower tree, which has really just got a tuft of foliage only at its very top! Yellowish foliage in Pinus strobus may be an effect of winter weather.

The history of this tree is really quite remarkable. It was first discovered by Europeans in Eastern Canada and the Northeastern USA in the 1500s and 1600s. Before then of course it was well known to the original Americans. The Eastern White Pine was known as the Tree of Peace by the Iroquoi confederacy, the famous Five Nations. The bunches of five-needles indicated the coming together of these tribes at the time of The Great Law of Peace to form the united and dominant force in the region prior to the arrival of the Europeans. The tree was eventually introduced to Europe in 1620 by George Weymouth, apparently being planted at Longleat. The white pines as a whole, and the Eastern White Pine in particular, were the overwhelmingly most valuable timber trees in the United States since the founding of the country. Before the American Revolution the British reserved all large white pine trees suitable for masts for exclusive use by the Royal Navy. In 1919, shortly after Blister Rust was discovered on native American white pines, the value of standing white pine timber was estimated to be over 1 billion dollars!

White pine blister rust, Cronartium ribicola, was introduced into the US from about 1910, on Eastern White Pines imported from Europe to help restore the devastated deforested areas, a fairly ironic step in retrospect!

Once White Pine Blister Rust was identified as such a severe threat, stupendous efforts were made to combat it. As Ribes is the alternate host for the rust, cultivated currants were virtually eliminated in gardens under horticultural control. In one year during the New Deal over 11,000 men were employed to try to remove all wild currant material from US forests. The first phyto-sanitary quarantine laws were introduced to control the spreads of Blister Rust. All this was completely ineffectual, possibly partly because of alternate natural hosts.