Leaves dark green, slender, 1′—1½′ long, marked by 6—10 rows of stomata on each face, mostly persistent 4—6 years. Flowers orange-red: male in short crowded spikes; female clustered or in pairs on stout stalks. Fruit ovoid to subcylindric, usually very oblique at base, horizontal or declining, often clustered, ¾′—2′ long, with thin slightly concave scales armed with long slender more or less recurved often deciduous prickles, and toward the base of the cone especially on the upper side developed into thick mammillate knobs, becoming light yellow-brown and lustrous, sometimes opening and losing their seeds as soon as ripe, or remaining closed on the branches and preserving the vitality of their seeds for many years; seeds oblique at apex, acute below, about ⅙′ long, with a thin brittle dark red-brown shell mottled with black and wings widest above the base, gradually tapering toward the oblique apex, ½′ long.
A tree, sometimes fertile when only a few inches high, usually 15°—20° or occasionally 30° tall, with a short trunk rarely more than 18′ in diameter, comparatively thick branches forming a round-topped compact and symmetrical or an open picturesque head, and stout branchlets light orange color when they first appear, finally becoming dark red-brown or occasionally almost black. Bark of the trunk ¾′—1′ thick, deeply and irregularly divided by vertical and cross fissures into small oblong plates covered with closely appressed dark red-brown scales tinged with purple or orange color. Wood light, hard, strong although brittle, coarse-grained, light brown tinged with red, with thick nearly white sapwood; occasionally used for fuel.
Distribution. Coast of Alaska, usually in sphagnum-covered bogs southward in the immediate neighborhood of the coast to the valley of the Albion River, Mendocino County, California; south of the northern boundary of the United States generally inhabiting sand dunes and barrens or occasionally near the shores of Puget Sound the margins of tide pools and deep wet swamps; spreading inland and ascending the coast ranges and western slopes of the Cascade Mountains, where it is not common and where it gradually changes its habit and appearance, the thick deeply furrowed bark of the coast form being found only near the ground, while the bark higher on the stems is thin, light-colored, and inclined to separate into scales, and the leaves are often longer and broader. This is
Pinus contorta var. latifolia S. Wats. Lodge-pole Pine.
Pinus contorta var. Murrayana Engelm.
Leaves yellow-green, usually about 2′ long, although varying from 1′—3′ in length and from 1/16′ to nearly ⅛′ in width. Fruit occasionally opening as soon as ripe but usually remaining closed and preserving the vitality of the seeds sometimes for twenty years.
A tree, usually 70°—80° but often 150° high, with a trunk generally 2°—3° but occasionally 5°—6° in diameter, slender much-forked branches frequently persistent nearly to the base of the stem, light orange-colored during their early years, somewhat pendulous below, ascending near the top of the tree, and forming a narrow pyramidal spire-topped head. Bark of the trunk rarely more than ¼′ thick, close and firm, light orange-brown and covered by small thin loosely appressed scales. Wood light, soft, not strong, close, straight-grained and easily worked, not durable, light yellow or nearly white, with thin lighter colored sapwood; occasionally manufactured into lumber; also used for railway-ties, mine-timbers, and for fuel.
Distribution. Common on the Yukon hills in the valley of the Yukon River; on the interior plateau of northern British Columbia and eastward to the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains, covering with dense forests great areas in the basin of the Columbia River; forming forests on both slopes of the Rocky Mountains of Montana; on the Yellowstone plateau at elevations of 7000°-8000°; common on the mountains of Wyoming, and extending southward to southern Colorado; the most abundant coniferous tree of the northern Rocky Mountain region; common on the ranges of eastern Washington and Oregon, on the mountains of northern California, and southward along the Sierra Nevada, where it attains its greatest size and beauty in alpine forests at elevations between 8000° and 9500°; in southern California the principal tree at elevations between 7000° and 10,000° on the high peaks of the San Bernardino and San Jacinto Mountains; on the upper slopes of the San Pedro Mártir Mountains, Lower California.