NOTES ON THE BISHOP PINE (PINUS MURICATA) 



By Woodbridge Metcai^f 



Assistant Professor of Forestry, University of California 



The bishop pine has been known for many years as an interesting 

 pine species of medium size inhabiting the region in the immediate 

 vicinity of the California coast from Mendocino County south to San 

 Luis Obispo and being found in modified form in Lower California 

 and on Cedros Island. All references which I have seen place the 

 northerly limit of its range in Mendocino County near Inglenook or 

 Fort Bragg and emphasize the moderate size of the tree ^ "usually 

 40-50 feet, but occasionally 90 feet high, with a trunk 2-3 feet in 

 diameter" with the region of optimum development stated as - "the 

 groves of the Mendocino coast flats." One reference ^ states that, 

 "in best situations such as peat swamps and redwood lands it attains 

 a height of from 80 to 150 feet and a diameter of from 2 to 3 feet." 

 The fact that the tree is found as far nofth as Trinidad in Humboldt 

 County and that it here reaches a size exceeding anything thus far 

 reported * will undoubtedly be of interest to dendrologists and foresters. 



In May, 1915, while on a trip to northern California my attention 

 was called to some large "bull pines" the identity of which'. was the 

 subject of controversy in the camps of the Hammond Lumber Com- 

 pany. One of the cruisers voiced his belief that these were "a kind 

 of sugar pine, but dififerent "because out of its range," while others 

 said they were "some kind of yellow pine." The tree was easily iden- 

 tified as bishop pine by its long, slender needles occurring two in a 

 fascicle ; and its unsymmetrical, persistent cones growing in whorls of 

 three or four around the branches. The cones are of the "closed" or 

 "fire" type, which tend to remain closed for many years on the tree 

 after maturity. The thickened cone scale umbos on the side away 

 from the branch and the slender prickle fixed the identitv of the 



'C. S. Sargent. Manual of the Trees of X. An.erica p. 32. 

 "W. L. Jepson, Silva of California, p. 9r>. 

 'U. S. Forest Service, Silvical Leaflet .'!0. 



* First published report of this extension in the range of Bishop pine in annual 

 report of the College of' .Agriculture, University of California, 1918-1919, p. 55. 



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