The Cuban Pine (Pinus cubensis) is a pine endemic to the eastern highlands of the island of Cuba, inhabiting both Sierra Nipe-Cristal and Sierra Maestra.
The closely related Hispaniolan Pine (P. occidentalis), native to the neighboring island of Hispaniola, is treated as synonymous by some botanists. Modern systematic studies recognize P. cubensis it as a valid species, nevertheless, there is disagreement about whether the Sierra Maestra populations in the south are part of P. cubensis or conform another species named Pinus maestrensis.
The Sierra Nipe-Cristal and Sierra Maestra population may have diverged recently, as indicated by recent genetic studies that have found some ancestral genetic lineages that are shared among the two regions and only some rare variants exclusive for each region.
Famous quotes containing the words cuban and/or pine:
“Because a person is born the subject of a given state, you deny the sovereignty of the people? How about the child of Cuban slaves who is born a slave, is that an argument for slavery? The one is a fact as well as the other. Why then, if you use legal arguments in the one case, you don’t in the other?”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“It is surprising on stepping ashore anywhere into this unbroken wilderness to see so often, at least within a few rods of the river, the marks of an axe, made by lumberers who have either camped here or driven logs past in previous springs. You will see perchance where, going on the same errand that you do, they have cut large chips from a tall white pine stump for their fire.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)