Name

Pinus monticola D.Don, Descr. Pinus [Lambert] 3: 149 (1832).
[Western white pine]

Description

Habit: Medium to tall tree, usually to c. 35 m, occasionally to over 60 m in the wild. Young trees have a narrowly conical crown often broadening with age, finally becoming broadly flat topped and rather open, with short, horizontal, often regularly clustered branches.

Bark: On young trees grey and smooth, sometimes tinged purplish, becoming grey-brown, deeply divided into rectangular, scaly plates.

Foliage: Needles in 5s, 4-13 cm long, 0.7-1.1 mm wide, bluish green, flexible, with a bluntish tip, slightly twisted, lines of stomata on inner sides, densely arranged on branches, remaining 3-4 years.

Branchlets: Young shoots brownish green, covered with minute reddish downy hairs, rarely without hairs, aging to purple-brown or grey, and hairless.

Winter buds: Cylindric to globose, sharp pointed, 5-15 mm long, with rust coloured, closely pressed scales with long free tips, slightly resinous.

Cones: Solitary or in clusters, pendulous after first year, green or purple before ripening, short stalked to 2 cm, cylindrical-oblong, with a narrowed tip, sometimes slightly curved, 7-25 cm long, 6-8 cm wide when open, yellow-brown when ripe, scales in 7-9 spiral rows, several rows of basal scales reflexed, very resinous, maturing in 2 years, shedding seeds and falling soon after.

Seeds: Compressed ovoid, 5-8 mm long, pale brown to reddish-brown with black mottling, wing 18-25 mm long.

Notes

The fine, reddish, downy covering on the young shoots, narrow conical habit and slender, many-scaled cones with reflexed basal scales help distinguish P. monticola from other 5 - needled pines. It has stouter needles than P. strobus, usually more downy shoots, more luxuriant foliage and a greater number of cone scales on cones that are generally longer.

Natural Distribution

W U.S.A.