Ponderosa pine

In brief

Pinus ponderosa, Pinaceae.

- Evergreen tree, to 70 m
- Native to western North America
- Wind-pollinated in spring
- Cone ripening in its second year

Where it grows

Western North America from British Columbia into Mexico. At 2,300 feet this is near the bottom edge of its range, where the pine belt runs out and the oak woodland takes over.

When it blooms

Pollen in spring, from small cones that shed and are gone. The seed cones take two summers.

Seed and fruit

A cone with a prickle on each scale that points outward. That prickle separates it from Jeffrey pine, whose prickles turn inward.

Here

Photographed as a young tree on a burnt slope on August 28, 2026.

Three needles to a bundle, twelve to twenty-five centimeters long, standing rather than hanging. Grey pine grows in these foothills too and also carries three, and its needles are longer, greyer, and droop.

The bark is worth putting a nose against on a hot afternoon. On a mature tree the plates smell of vanilla or butterscotch.