| Summary: | Using a dendrochronological approach, we determined the resistance, recovery and resilience of the radial stem increment towards episodes of growth decline, and the accompanying variation of <sup>13</sup>C discrimination against atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub> (Δ<sup>13</sup>C) in tree rings of two palaeotropical pine species. These species co-occur in the mountain ranges of south–central Vietnam (1500–1600 m a.s.l.), but differ largely in their areas of distribution (<i>Pinus kesiya</i> from northeast India to the Philippines; <i>P. dalatensis</i> only in south and central Vietnam and in some isolated populations in Laos). For <i>P. dalatensis</i>, a robust growth chronology covering the past 290 years could be set up for the first time in the study region. For <i>P. kesiya</i>, the 140-year chronology constructed was the longest that could be established to date in that region for this species. In the first 40 years of the trees’ lives, the stem diameter increment was significantly larger in <i>P. kesiya</i>, but levelled off and even decreased after 100 years, whereas <i>P. dalatensis</i> exhibited a continuous growth up to an age of almost 300 years. Tree-ring growth of <i>P. kesiya</i> was negatively related to temperature in the wet months and season of the current year and in October (humid transition period) of the preceding year and to precipitation in August (monsoon season), but positively to precipitation in December (dry season) of the current year. The <i>P. dalatensis</i> chronologies exhibited no significant correlation with temperature or precipitation. Negative correlations between BAI and Δ<sup>13</sup>C indicate a lack of growth impairment by drought in both species. Regression analyses revealed a lower resilience of <i>P. dalatensis</i> upon episodes of growth decline compared to <i>P. kesiya</i>, but, contrary to our hypothesis, mean values of the three sensitivity parameters did not differ significantly between these species. Nevertheless, the vigorous growth of <i>P. kesiya</i>, which does not fall behind that of <i>P. dalatensis</i> even at the margin of its distribution area under below-optimum edaphic conditions, is indicative of a relatively high plasticity of this species towards environmental factors compared to <i>P. dalatensis</i>, which, in tendency, is less resilient upon environmental stress even in the “core” region of its occurrence.
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