Medium-sized to large tree with rather open crown, the stout trunk becoming bare of branches for most of length. Bark thick, deeply fissured and forming small irregular plates with smooth, dark red or reddish brown surfaces. Shoots deep brown or brownish, ± shining, glabrous, with remains of lf bases prominent. Buds cylindric-oblong, sometimes very large (> 4 × 1.5 cm), not resinous; scales dark reddish, reflexed, with margins strongly white-fimbriate. Lvs 2 per fascicle, 6-17-(26) cm × c. 2 mm (nearly always appearing narrower because of incurved margins), dull green, rigid, pungent; resin canals median; sheath 5-10 mm long in older lvs. ♂ strobili < 1.5 cm long, ellipsoid or broad-ellipsoid. Conelets sessile, prominent and broad-ellipsoid; scales obtuse, acute or mucronate. Mature cones often persistent for several years, sessile or subsessile, 7-15 × 4-6 cm when closed (to 19 × 9 cm in cultivation), usually cylindric-ovoid, sometimes ovoid (small cones), ± symmetric; apophyses rhomboid, keeled, shining brown; umbo prickly. Seed wing asymmetric, to 2.5-(3) cm long.