Trees to 72m; trunk to 2.5m diam., straight; crown broadly conic to rounded. Bark yellow- to red-brown, deeply irregularly furrowed, cross-checked into broadly rectangular, scaly plates. Branches descending to spreading-ascending; twigs stout (to 2cm thick), orange-brown, aging darker orange-brown, rough. Buds ovoid, to 2cm, fully 1cm broad, red-brown, very resinous; scale margins white-fringed. Leaves 2--5 per fascicle, spreading to erect, persisting (2--)4--6(--7) years, 7--25(--30)cm ´ (1--)1.2--2mm, slightly twisted, tufted at twig tips, pliant, deep yellow-green, all surfaces with evident stomatal lines, margins serrulate, apex abruptly to narrowly acute or acuminate; sheath 1.5--3cm, base persistent. Pollen cones ellipsoid-cylindric, 1.5--3.5cm, yellow or red. Seed cones maturing in 2 years, shedding seeds soon thereafter, leaving rosettes of scales on branchlets, solitary or rarely in pairs, spreading to reflexed, symmetric to slightly asymmetric, conic-ovoid before opening, broadly ovoid when open, 5--15cm, mostly reddish brown, sessile to nearly sessile, scales in steep spirals (as compared to Pinus jeffreyi ) of 5--7 per row as viewed from side, those of cones just prior to and after cone fall spreading and reflexed, thus well separate from adjacent scales; apophyses dull to lustrous, thickened and variously raised and transversely keeled; umbo central, usually pyramidal to truncated, rarely depressed, merely acute, or with a very short apiculus, or with a stout-based spur or prickle. Seeds ellipsoid-obovoid; body (3--)4--9mm, brown to yellow-brown, often mottled darker; wing 15--25mm.