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Pinaceae family

Japanese Black Pine Pinus thunbergii

Drought-tough — Rated High for drought tolerance, corroborated by deep roots — a water-wise pick once it's established.

Japanese Black Pine is an introduced perennial tree, found in the lower 48 states. It grows to 107 ft.

⚠ Invasive here — plant a native instead USDA + GBIF

Japanese Black Pine is flagged invasive in the U.S. These natives fill a similar niche — same growth habit, bloom season, height, and region — so you keep the look and feed local wildlife instead of spreading a problem.

Boxelder
Native
Boxelder
Acer negundo
●●●●●
Boxelder (var. negundo)
Native
Boxelder (var. negundo)
Acer negundo var. negundo
●●●●●
Red Maple
Native
Red Maple
Acer rubrum
●●●●●
Red Maple (var. rubrum)
Native
Red Maple (var. rubrum)
Acer rubrum var. rubrum
●●●●●
Matched on growth habit · bloom months · mature height · shared U.S. range (USDA + GBIF) — a starting point, not a prescription.

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Conditions
Sources · Conditions
Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness
Niinemets & Valladares 2006 (CC0) — Drought tolerance · Shade tolerance · Wet-soil tolerance
Hardiness
≥ zone 7 derived from its U.S. range
Drought tolerance
High
Shade tolerance
Low
Wet-soil tolerance
Low waterlogging
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) — Height · Foliage
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
Height
107 ft
Lifespan
Perennial
Foliage
Evergreen needleleaf
In the garden
Canopy layer — Sits in the canopy of a layered food forest or polyculture. Its deep roots also work the lower soil profile.Open guide →
derived roles
Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts ~201 caterpillar species

Pinus supports ~201 caterpillar species.

Native butterfly & moth caterpillars are the base of the terrestrial food web — most songbirds rear their young almost entirely on them. As a host for native Lepidoptera this is an exceptional genus.

Recorded feeding on Pinus in North America, including:

Acleris bowmanana · leafroller moth Acleris variana · Eastern Black-Headed Budworm Moth Acronicta lanceolaria · Pointed Dagger Moth Acronicta oblinita · Smeared Dagger Moth Actebia fennica · owlet moth Amorbia humerosana · White-Lined Leafroller
+ 8 more species →
Anacamptodes vellivolata · geometer (inchworm) moth Anavitrinella pampinaria · Common Gray Antheraea polyphemus · Polyphemus Moth Aphelia alleniana · Wide-Striped Leafroller Aplectoides condita · Quivering Dart Moth Archips cerasivorana · Ugly-Nest Caterpillar Moth Archips oporana · leafroller moth Archips packardiana · Spring Spruce Needle Moth
Keystone count (genus-level) from Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use records. Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0).
Wildlife & visitors 1 mammal · 1 nectaring

Open records of who else uses Japanese Black Pine — a generalist food-web signal, kept separate from the keystone Ecological Value.

Recorded eaten by 1 mammal species (fruit, seed, browse):

Callosciurus erythraeus · Pallas's Squirrel

1 adult butterfly & moth species is recorded nectaring at its flowers:

Dione vanillae
Interaction records (observations, not exhaustive) from GloBI → (CC0). Counts are distinct species; names are the most-recorded. Common names from Wikidata (CC0).
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
How we know this (2) Methods & honest limits
Photosynthesis Direct fact

A recorded categorical fact: each species is tagged C3 (standard), C4 (heat/water-efficient) or CAM (succulent, night-time CO₂ uptake) — or a facultative combination. We only show a trait card for the noteworthy C4/CAM cases; C3 is the unremarkable majority, kept in the data but not surfaced as a card.

Kattge, J. et al. TRY plant trait database — Categorical Traits Dataset (2012).
Climate niche (heat tolerance & native rainfall) Derived

We take the plant’s U.S. county range and look up each county’s long-term climate, then summarise: native rainfall = the median annual rainfall across its counties; heat tolerance = the warm end (90th percentile) of average temperature across its range (mirroring how our cold-hardiness floor uses an extreme). Counties + medians blunt the roadside/observer bias that makes point-level climate unreliable. Needs at least five placeable counties.

Honest limits: A realized, sampling-biased niche (where it has been recorded, not its physiological optimum), and county climate is coarse — large Western counties span deserts and mountains. Derived guide, never a measured fact.

Realized-niche / climate-envelope approach (Pearson & Dawson 2003; Soberón 2007). Climate: NOAA NCEI nClimDiv county normals (1991–2020).
Derived values are computed from open data by a published method — labelled, cited, and never shown as a direct observation. Full methodology →
Sources for this entry (21) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[05] Invasive / introduced status — US-RIIS v2.0 (USGS)
[07] Ecological value — Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[10] Functional traits — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[11] Photosynthetic pathway — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[12] Climate niche — Derived — realized climate niche from U.S. county occurrences (GBIF) × NOAA NCEI county climate normals 1991–2020 (public domain)
[13] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones
[14] Wildlife & visitors — GloBI — Global Biotic Interactions (CC0)
[15] Rooting depth — Fan et al. 2017 (Dryad, CC0)
[18] Stress tolerance — Niinemets & Valladares 2006 (CC0)
[19] Caterpillar host count — Warren II 2026 (Dryad, CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[20] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
[21] County range — GBIF Open Data — open-licensed occurrences (CC0/CC-BY) → county
Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.
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PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

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