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Sugar Pine (Pinus lambertiana) |
Color Photographs: © by and courtesy of Charles Webber, California Academy of Sciences |
Sugar Pine (Pinus lambertiana) Identifying Characters: The stalked cones, the needles in bundles of five, and the conspicuous white lines on the ventral side of a needle are all characteristic of this species. Similar Species: Sugar Pine is similar to Western White Pine. However the cones are much larger (12 to 18 inches long in lambertiana versus 5 to 11 inches long in monticola). The needles have conspicuous white lines on the ventral surface missing in Western White Pine. Measurements: Mature trees reach 175 to 200 feet in height and 36 to 60 inches in diameter. Cones: Cones 12 to 18 inches long, cylindrical, and with a long stalk; cone scales thick and rounded. Needles: Needles in bundles of five, 3 to 4 inches long; sheath deciduous after the first year; needles blue-green with conspicuous white lines on the ventral surface; needles stiff, slender, sharp-pointed and pointed at the apex. Bark: Bark of mature trees 2 to 3 inches thick and deeply divided into long plate-like ridges covered with large, loose red-brown or purple-brown scales. Native Range: Sugar Pine extends from the west slope of the Cascade Range in north central Oregon to the Sierra San Pedro Martir in Baja California (approximate latitude 30° 30' to 45° 10' N.). Its distribution is almost continuous through the Klamath and Siskiyou Mountains and on west slopes of the Cascade Range and Sierra Nevada, but smaller and more disjunct populations are found in the Coast Ranges of southern Oregon and California, Transverse and Peninsula Ranges of southern California, and east of the Cascade and Sierra Nevada crests. Its southern extremity is an isolated population high on a plateau in the Sierra San Pedro Martir in Baja California. Over 80 percent of the growing stock is in California where the most extensive and dense populations are found in mixed conifer forests on the west slope of the Sierra Nevada. (Silvics of North America. 1990. Agriculture Handbook 654.) Habitat: Sugar pine occurs is a montane species of northern California and Oregon occurring as single individuals in mixed coniferous montane forest.
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