graphite pencil on bristol board, 30cm x 42cm,
Iain White, 2019, £45
The Scots pine, Pinus sylvestris L., has a very wide distribution outside Scotland. Indeed according to Stevens and Carlisle (1959) it is the most widely distributed conifer in the world, with a latitudinal range coastal Finmark to the Spanish Sierra Nevada. Longitudinally it occurs from the North Atlantic seaboard in Western Scotland and in Scandinavia to Okhotsk in Siberia and perhaps even through to the pacific coast of Russia. This distribution represents a great range of climates. Perhaps its continental distribution as a whole, however, is suggestive that it evolved undercontinental conditions and is still basically a tree of such environments. In its great range of adaptations to different environments it displays considerable variation in morphology and also probably in physiology.
This fact has led to the recognition of different geographical races, or subspecies of the Scots pine. Some authors regard the native pines of Scotland as an endemic subspecies; Pinus sylvestris ssp. scotica, but Stevens and Carlisle prefer to regard it as a geographical variety Pinus sylvestris L var. scotica Schott. with close affinities with var. septentrionalis Schott. of southern Sweden. Whatever the justification for subspecies status, the reality of the morphological differences probably reflects the distinct Holocene origin of the current highland pine population. Even within Scotland, however, the Scots pine shows great variability in growth habit, bark, cone size and leaf length, and in duration of leaf life, for example. Some of these variations appear to be genetically controlled morphological differences which probably parallel physiological differences of adaptive significance.
