It occurs from Newfoundland, Canada, west through the Great Lakes region to southeastern Manitoba and Minnesota, United States, and south along the Appalachian Mountains and upper Piedmont to northernmost Georgia and very rare in some of the higher elevations in northeastern Alabama.

[13] Fossilized white pine leaves and pollen have been discovered by Brian Axsmith, a paleobotanist at the University of South Alabama, in the Gulf Coastal Plain, where the tree no longer occurs.

The tall stands in Mohawk Trail State Forest and William Cullen Bryant Homestead in Massachusetts are examples.

Like most members of the white pine group, Pinus subgenus Strobus, the leaves ("needles") are coniferous, occurring in fascicles (bundles) of five, or rarely three or four, with a deciduous sheath.

Eastern white pine is self-fertile, but seeds produced this way tend to result in weak, stunted, and malformed seedlings.

Even greater heights have been reported in popular, but unverifiable, accounts such as Robert Pike's Tall Trees, Tough Men.

Before Hurricane Opal broke its top in October 1995, Boogerman Pine was 63 m (207 ft) tall, as determined by Will Blozan and Robert Leverett using ground-based measurements.

The Cook Forest State Park of Pennsylvania has the most numerous collection of 45 m (148 ft) eastern white pines in the Northeast, with 110 trees measuring that height or more.

The fungus must spend part of its lifecycle on alternate hosts of the genus Ribes, the native gooseberry or wild currant.

Foresters proposed that if all the alternate host plants were removed, white pine blister rust might be eliminated.

A very determined campaign was mounted, and all land owners in commercial pine-growing regions were encouraged to uproot and kill all native gooseberry and wild currant plants.

As an alternative, new strains of commercial currants have been developed that are highly resistant to white pine blister rust.

[25] Although widely planted as a landscape tree in the Midwestern states,[26] native White pine is listed as "rare or uncommon" in Indiana.

[3][27] In the 19th century, the harvesting of Midwestern white pine forests played a major role in America's westward expansion through the Great Plains.

"[30] Descriptions of its uses are quoted below from a 19th-century source: Being of a soft texture and easily worked, taking paint better than almost any other variety of wood, it has been found adaptable to all the uses demanded in the building art, from the manufacture of packing cases to the bearing timber and finer finish of a dwelling.

Of light weight, it has borne transportation to the farms of the west, where it is used for building purposes in dwellings, barns, and corn cribs, while as a fencing material it has no superior.

Aside from those conditions which demand a dense strong timber, such as ship-building or in wagon-making, white pine has been found adaptable to all the economic uses in which lumber is required, not excluding its use in coarser articles of furniture.

[30] The species was imported in 1620 to England by Captain George Weymouth, who planted it for a timber crop, but had little success because of white pine blister rust disease.

Old-growth pine in the Americas, of various Pinus species, was a highly desired wood since huge, knot-free boards were the rule rather than the exception.

In contrast, most hardwood trees such as cherry, maple, oak, and ash must be cut into 1" thick boards immediately after felling, or else large cracks will develop in the trunk which can render the wood worthless.

[22][13] Although eastern white pine was frequently used for flooring in buildings constructed before the U.S. Civil War, the wood is soft and tends to cup over time with wear.

Colonel David Dunbar had been in the town investigating a stock pile of white pine in a pond and the ownership of the local timber mill before caning two townspeople.

[35] In 1772, the sheriff of Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, was sent to the town of Weare to arrest mill owners for the illegal possession of large white pines.

[citation needed] In colonial times, an unusually large, lone, white pine was found in coastal South Carolina along the Black River, far east of its southernmost normal range.

[13] Eastern white pine needles exceed the amount of vitamin C of lemons and oranges[38] and make an excellent herbal tea.

Linnaeus noted in the 18th century that cattle and pigs fed pine bark bread grew well, but he personally did not like the taste.

[39] The name "Adirondack", an Iroquois word that means tree-eater, referred to their neighbors (more commonly known as the Algonquians) who collected the inner bark of P. strobus, Picea rubens, and others during times of winter starvation.

Generally, a wet pulp from the inner bark, or pine tar mixed with beeswax or butter was applied to wounds and used as a salve to prevent infection.

Sheared varieties are usually desired because of their stereotypical Christmas tree conical shape, as naturally grown ones can be sparse, or grow bushy in texture.

[44] The branches of the eastern white pine are also widely used in making holiday wreaths and garlands because of their soft, feathery needles.