Trees to 50 m in native range; bark gray or dark brown; branchlets pale brown or orange-brown, glabrous; winter buds ovoid or cylindric-ovoid, slightly resinous. Needles 2 per bundle, pale or dark green, straight or curved, 4-19 cm × 1-2 mm, somewhat rigid, resin canals 3-17, median, base with persistent sheath. Seed cones subsessile, yellowish or pale brown, shiny, 3-8 × 2-4 cm, deciduous. Apophyses slightly or obtusely keeled; umbo mucronate.

Widely cultivated. Beijing Shi, Hubei (Wuhan Shi), Jiangsu (Nanjing Shi), Jiangxi (Lu Shan), Liaoning, Shandong, Zhejiang [native to NW Africa, SW Asia, S Europe]