Trees to 30 m in native range; bark brown, deeply and irregularly longitudinally furrowed; branches sometimes pendulous, forming a pyramidal crown; branchlets pale reddish brown, producing 1-few nodes each year; winter buds brown, oblong, resinous. Needles 2 per bundle, bright green, usually twisted, 10-20 cm × ca. 2 mm, stiff, resin canals 6, median. Seed cones clustered, shortly pedunculate, conical- or ellipsoid-ovoid, symmetric or asymmetric, 9-18 cm. Apophyses brown, lustrous, conspicuously pyramidal; umbo slightly projecting and pungent.

Cultivated. Jiangsu, Jiangxi (Lu Shan) [native to N Africa, S Europe]