Trees to 40(–60) m tall with a broadly conical crown. Trunks usually relatively straight, to 1.0(–1.5) m dbh; bark gray and relatively smooth on young trees, becoming dark grayish brown, relatively thick, irregularly furrowed and somewhat flaking on mature trees; wood relatively soft, pale, not very resinous. Branches irregular, often whorled, more or less divaricate. Twigs relatively slender, glabrous or more commonly minutely pubescent at the short-shoot bases, smooth, light green, soon turning gray; winter buds 5–9 mm long, oblong-ovoid, slightly resinous, the scales thin, papery, appressed; scales subtending short shoots minute, curved, nondecurrent, not long-persistent. Short-shoots producing fascicles of 5 needles; bundle sheaths thin, papery, caducous. Needles persisting 2 or 3 years, (5–)6–10(–13) cm long, 0.6–0.9 mm wide, narrowly acerose, straight, relatively flexible, bluish green (often appearing somewhat grayish), triangular in cross-section; angles minutely serrulate; ventral pair of surfaces each with 2 or 3 stomatal lines; fibrovascular bundle 1 per needle, associated with 2 or 3 resin ducts near the epidermis. Pollen cones (microstrobili) numerous, densely fasciculate at base of current year’s growth, 10–15 mm long, narrowly ellipsoid, yellow. Seed cones (megastrobili) mostly in whorls of 2–4 near the branch tips, pendulous; stalks 15–24 mm; cones (6–)8–16(–25) cm long, 4–8 cm wide (when open), cylindric-ellipsoid to narrowly oblong-ovoid, often somewhat arcuate or twisted, dull brown, open at maturity, dropping soon after seeds have been dispersed. Cone scales 40–100, relatively thin and flexible; apophysis not thickened, rhombic, rounded to obtuse; umbo terminal, blunt (unarmed), usually resinous. Seeds paired, flattened, with the body 5–8 mm long, 3–5 mm wide, reddish brown to brown, sometimes mottled; adnate wing 15–20(–30 mm long), asymmetrically ovoid-triangular, brown. Source documents: Kral (1993), Krüssman (1985), Farjon et al. (1997), Farjon (2005).