Trees to 30 m tall; trunk to 1.5 m d.b.h.; bark orange-red, red-brown, or brown-yellow, flaking and scaly; crown umbrellalike; 1st-year branchlets pale yellow or red-yellow, slightly glaucous, glabrous, white powdery or not; vegetative buds dark red-brown, oblong-ovoid, slightly resinous; scales slightly reflexed at apex. Needles 2 per bundle, twisted or not, semiorbicular in cross section, 5-15 cm × ca. 1 mm, vascular bundles 2, resin canals 3-9, marginal, margin inflexed or not. Seed cones erect or pendulous, shortly pedunculate, dark yellow-brown or brownish yellow, ovoid or ovoid-conical, 3-5.5 × 2.5-4.5 cm, dehiscent at maturity. Seed scales usually thin; apophyses usually appressed, broadly rhombic, flat or recurved at apex, rarely pyramidal and slightly ridged; umbo flat or slightly protruding into a minute spine. Seeds obovoid-ellipsoid or ovoid, 3-7 × ca. 3 mm; wing 1-2 cm × 5-7 mm. Pollination Apr-Jun, seed maturity Sep-Oct of 2nd year.

The timber is used for construction, poles, and furniture; the trunk can be used as a source of resin.

Coastal regions to mountains, lakesides, rocky hillsides; near sea level to 900 m. E and S Heilongjiang, NE Jiangsu, SE Jilin, Liaoning, E and N Shandong [Japan, Korea, E Russia]