Trees to 30 m tall; trunk straight or crooked, to 0.9 m d.b.h. in native range, usually with adventitious sprouts; bark red-brown, with deeply and irregularly oblong, flat, scaly ridges; crown rounded or irregular; 2nd-year branchlets orange-brown, aging darker brown, stout, mostly more than 5 mm wide, rough; winter buds red-brown, ovoid or ovoid-cylindric, resinous, scales fringed at margin. Needles 3(-5) per bundle, deep or pale yellow-green, twisted, 5-10(-15) cm × 1-1.5(-2) mm, stomatal lines present on all surfaces, base with persistent sheath 0.9-1.2 cm. Seed cones often clustered, sessile or shortly pedunculate, dull brown or pale red-brown, conical or ovoid before opening, broadly ovoid with flat or slightly convex base when open, 3-9 cm, maturing in 2 years, dehiscent. Seed scales with dark red-brown border adaxially distally; apophyses rhombic, slightly raised, strongly cross keeled; umbo low pyramidal, with a slender, reflexed prickle. Seeds dark brown, mottled darker or nearly black, broadly obliquely obovoid-deltoid, 4-6 mm; wing 1.5-2 cm.

Cultivated. Fujian, Jiangsu (Nanjing Shi), Jiangxi (Lu Shan), Liaoning, Shandong (Qingdao Shi) [native to SE Canada, E United States]