The sugar pine (Pinus lambertiana) is the largest pine of all, in both height and volume. Its branches sweep gracefully downward under the weight of its cones, while its pyramid-shaped crown reaches skyward, and its deep roots and dark green needles make it stand out in every season.
A sugar pine, its branch tips pulled down by large cones. Willmcw, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Size
- Height: commonly 40–60 m (130–200 ft), some up to 76 m (250 ft).
- Trunk: 1.5–3 m (5–10 ft) across, with deeply furrowed cinnamon-red bark.
- Needles: 8 cm (3 in) long, in bundles of five.
- Cones: the most striking feature — on average 30 cm (12 in) long and 10–15 cm (4–6 in) wide, sometimes more than 51 cm (20 in). They fill with plump seeds that ripen in late August, and can weigh several pounds.
An unusually large mature female cone, 22.9 inches long. NPS.
Where it grows
The Scottish botanist and explorer David Douglas first noticed it in 1826, at the headwaters of the Umpqua River in Oregon. It grows in dry to moist mixed-conifer forests of the Pacific coast mountains — mainly on the west slope of the Cascades from the north-central Oregon Cascades south into the Siskiyou, Klamath and Sierra Nevada ranges — with smaller, scattered populations in the Coast Range of southern Oregon and California and, at its southern limit, on a high plateau in the Sierra de San Pedro Mártir of Baja California, Mexico. It ranges from 183 m (600 ft), rarely, among coast redwoods, up to 3,353 m (11,000 ft), but is most common at 914–1,829 m (3,000–6,000 ft).
Life cycle
Like other pines, sugar pines bear both male and female cones. The small, tightly scaled male cones grow on lower branches and release pollen, carried by wind or insects to the female cones higher up. Seeds develop inside the hardened scales, fertilization comes about 12 months after pollination, and a cone can take many years to produce seed; the best seed years come every 3–5 years. Birds, mammals and wind disperse the seeds. Each 1 cm (0.5 in) seed has a 2 cm (0.75 in) wing that carries it on the wind until it drops and, if conditions are right, takes root. The smooth grey-barked sapling grows into a giant that can live 500 years or more.
People and the sugar pine
Native peoples of the region used its sweet sap as a food additive and a medicine, and ate its seeds — a nutritious pine nut — roasted or pounded into cakes stored for winter; the blackish-brown nuts also became beads for jewellery. European settlers prized the wood, which is light for its bulk, knot-free and very straight, for storage boxes, wide clear boards and piano and organ keys.
Threats
White pine blister rust (Cronartium ribicola), mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae), climate change, the suppression of wildfire and logging all leave sugar pines vulnerable.
Where to see it
Sugar pines grow in every park of the National Park Service's Klamath Network, but are common only in Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, Lassen Volcanic National Park and Oregon Caves National Monument and Preserve.
Sources
- Jennifer Chenoweth, "Sugar Pine," Featured Creature, NPS Klamath Inventory and Monitoring Network, December 2021. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/sugar-pine.htm · PDF: https://irma.nps.gov/DataStore/Reference/Profile/2290004
- NPS, "White Pines in Decline": https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/white-pines-in-decline.htm
- USGS, "12 Days of Conifers: A Tale of Two Conifers — Incense Cedar and Sugar Pine": https://www.usgs.gov/news/12-days-conifers-tale-two-conifers-incense-cedar-and-sugar-pine
In these publicationsCrater Lake National ParkLassen Volcanic National ParkRedwood National and State ParksOregon Caves National Monument & PreserveWhiskeytown National Recreation AreaLava Beds National Monument
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.nps.gov
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