Pinus pinaster, the maritime pine or cluster pine, is a pine native to the Mediterranean region. It is a hard, fast growing pine containing small seeds with large wings.
Its range is in the western Mediterranean Basin, extending from Portugal and Northern Spain (especially in Galicia) to southern and Western France, east to western Italy, Croatia and south to northern Tunisia, Algeria and northern Morocco. It favours a Mediterranean climate, which is one that has cool, rainy winters and hot, dry summers.
It generally occurs at low to moderate altitudes, mostly from sea level to 600 m, but up to 2,000 m in the south of its range in Morocco. The high degree of fragmentation in the current natural distribution is caused by two factors: the discontinuity and altitude of the mountain ranges causing isolation of even close populations, and human activity.
