Native Indiana Tree of the Week: Jack Pine (Pinus banksiana)

Northern disjunct species, this pine is only found on sandy scrubby barrens & prairies on the dunes bordering Lake Michigan & does not extend more than 1-1.5 miles from the Lake Michigan shoreline....

Found only in scattered locations within 1-1.5 miles of Lake Michigan, Jack Pine is most common at Indiana Dunes National Park & Indiana Dunes State Park. Thriving on the xeric, acidic, wind-shifting sand, it is the southernmost range of the species that ranges all the way to the tundra line in the Arctic. In Indiana, many of the original native areas of Jack Pine along Lake Michigan have been destroyed by development. In its native Hoosier habitat, it grows amidst Maram grass, lupines & Hoary Puccoon to Prickly Pear Cactus & Black & Hill’s Oak with Quaking Aspen. The Dunes are an oddity in that many dry, Plains species & even southern Plains species are found amidst more Arctic, Great Lakes & Canadian species together, making this area extremely biologically-rich. Bogs & swamps just inland from the lake amidst the dunes then provide another habitat for a whole host of disjunct plant populations from the South & North.