Trees to 67m; trunk to 1.8m diam., straight; crown conic, becoming rounded to flattened. Bark gray-brown, deeply furrowed, with long, irregularly rectangular, scaly plates. Branches whorled, spreading-upswept; twigs slender, pale red-brown, glabrous or pale puberulent, aging gray, ±smooth. Buds ovoid-cylindric, light red-brown, 0.4--0.5cm, slightly resinous. Leaves 5 per fascicle, spreading to ascending, persisting 2--3 years, 6--10cm ´ 0.7--1mm, straight, slightly twisted, pliant, deep green to blue-green, pale stomatal lines evident only on adaxial surfaces, margins finely serrulate, apex abruptly acute to short-acuminate; sheath 1--1.5cm, shed early. Pollen cones ellipsoid, 10--15mm, yellow. Seed cones maturing in 2 years, shedding seeds and falling soon thereafter, clustered, pendent, symmetric, cylindric to lance-cylindric or ellipsoid-cylindric before opening, ellipsoid-cylindric to cylindric or lance-cylindric when open, (7--)8--20cm, gray-brown to pale brown, with purple or gray tints, stalks 2--3cm; apophyses slightly raised, resinous at tip; umbo terminal, low. Seeds compressed, broadly obliquely obovoid; body 5--6mm, red-brown mottled with black; wing 1.8--2.5cm, pale brown. 2 n =24. Mesic to dry sites; 0--1500m; St. Pierre and Miquelon; Man., N.B., Nfld., N.S., Ont., P.E.I., Que.; Conn., Del., Ga., Ill., Ind., Iowa, Ky., Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., Minn., N.H., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Pa., Ohio, R.I., S.C., Tenn., Vt., Va., W.Va., Wis.; Mexico; Central America in Guatemala. Pinus strobus is an important timber tree; because of extensive lumbering, few uncut stands remain. It was once prized as a source for ship masts, and large tracts of it were reserved for the Royal Navy during colonial times. Pinus strobus var. chiapensis appears to be as Martínez saw it: a clinal variant that, compared to the type variety, has finer leaves, different resin canal distribution, and heavier cones when cones of similar sizes are compared.

Eastern white pine ( Pinus strobus ) is the provincial tree of Ontario and the state tree of Maine and Michigan.