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An alpine tree attaining rarely 90 feet in height and 6 feet in girth. Bark ashy grey, fissuring into irregular plates, averaging 6 inches in length and 3 inches in breadth. Buds like those of P. Laricio, but darker brown in colour. Young branchlets glaucous. Leaves in pairs, persisting five or six years, densely covering the branchlets, except at the base of each year's shoot, which is bare for a short distance, forming an apical cup-like tuft, and on the rest of the branchlet directed forwards and slightly outwards; the two leaves in each bundle only slightly divergent; dark green, stiff, short, 2 to 3 inches in length, ending in a sharp cartilaginous point; basal-sheaths as in P. Laricio. According to Koehne, the structure of the leaf differs from P. Laricio in the resin-canals not being surrounded by stereome cells; and Masters states that the hypoderm projects in wedge-shaped masses into the substance of the leaf, which is not the case generally in forms of Laricio.

Cones short-stalked, ovoid-conic, with a flat base, about 3 inches long, resembling generally those of Laricio, but differing in the uniform dull brown colour of the whole cone, the umbo being of the same colour as the rest of the apophysis. The lower scales of the cone have very prominent pyramidal apophyses, and the umbo has a well-marked short spine directed backwards. Concealed part of the scales light brown on both surfaces. Seeds as in P. Laricio.

Pinus leucodermis was discovered in 1864 by Maly, who introduced it into cultivation the same year in the Belvidere, Vienna. The best account of the tree is given by Beck, who considers it to be specifically distinct from Laricio, and names it the Panzerfohre or Smré of the Herzegovinians. It is found in four distinct areas in Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Montenegro; and as the most southerly of these is on the Montenegro-Albanian frontier (lat. 42° 25'), it is probable that it also grows on the Peristeri mountain, which lies west of Monastir in Albania. The most northerly locality (lat. 43° 40'), where it was discovered by Beck, is the Prenj Planina in the heart of Herzegovina. Here it occupies an area of about sixty kilometres in diameter, surrounding the western part of the Bjelasnica mountain, and forms a coniferous belt at from 4600 to 5500 feet elevation, rising solitary or in small groups to 5800 feet. Another area is the Bjela Gora, where the political boundaries of Bosnia, Montenegro, and Herzegovina unite around Mount Orjen. Reiser found it also in the Sinjavina Planina in Montenegro. Its occurrence in Servia is not yet established.