Barbed pine is a relatively small tree up to 12 m in height, the trunk of which reaches 0.6 m in diameter, with a rounded or irregular crown . The bark is red or gray-brown, scaly-furrowed. Young branches are reddish or yellow-brown, then darkening to red-brown.
Buds are red-brown, resin-coated, cylindrical or ovoid, less than 1 cm.
Needles lasted for 3 years. The needles are collected in bunches of 2 or 3, up to 8 cm long, straight, of various shades of yellow-green color; jagged edges of needles.
Male strobila cylindrical shape, about 1.5 cm long, yellow. Female strobiles are biennial, curved, asymmetrical, immature - narrowly ovoid, then opening up and becoming broadly ovoid, gray or red-brown in color, 4-10 cm long. Scales hard, with a pointed tip.
The seeds are obovate, about 6 mm, purple-brown, with a wing up to 3 cm.
The number of chromosomes - 2n = 24.
Prickly pine is found only in Appalachia , at an altitude of 500 to 1350 m above sea level. The northern boundary of the range - central Pennsylvania , South - North Carolina and the north of Georgia .
