51. Pinus wallichiana A.B. Jackson PINACEAE
Blue pine; Hindi: kail, काएल
The needles of this pine are grouped in bundles of five. The tree occurs in the Himalaya from Afghanistan eastwards to Bhutan, where it can reach a height of 40 metres. Its name commemorates the Danish botanist Nathaniel Wallich, who was Superintendent of the Calcutta Botanic Garden from 1817 to 1846. In the Himalaya the timber is used for house-building, for making furniture, railway sleepers and tea boxes, and for fuel. The trunk can be tapped for turpentine, and the resinous wood is used for torches. The needles are used for animal litter. This specimen was grown from seed collected in 1954 by Adam Stainton, William Sykes and John Williams, on an expedition to Nepal organised by the Natural History Museum in London.
Watercolour of Pinus wallichiana by Govindoo, c. 1860, from the Cleghorn Collection
