#lacebark pine

[harlequinbutterfly-blog]

[greatesttreesofnyc]

Lacebark Pine Wave Hill The Bronx

With a beautiful name like lacebark pine, you except an elegant tree, and this specimen at Wave Hill in the Bronx is quite lovely, although you have to seek it out amidst a whole grove of showy arbors. The conifer is in the same grouping of official NYC Great Trees as the sugar maple I previously shared, and according to NYC Parks is a bit shorter than that tree at 52.48 feet tall. 

So why the lacebark name? If you go below its evergreen canopy, there are slender trunks covered in a patchwork of green, grey, white, and brown formed from the flaking of its bark. The tree is originally from central China, and has long been popular as an ornamental, often cultivated around Buddhist temples.

In the United States it’s sometimes called the moody "Silver Ghost" for its distinct coloration. Neither Wave Hill nor NYC Parks states why this tree was deemed a Great Tree; there is at least one in the Pinetum of Central Park, so it’s not the only example in the five boroughs. But it is quite lovely, and when you’re beneath its pyramidal shape and considering the winding trunks with their mottled bark, it is, as Wave Hill charmingly calls the species, a "garden aristocrat in all respects.”