904 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



scattered in the transition zone of chaparral and timber. Along the 

 coast the tree appears at elevations of from 2,000 to 3,000 feet, and in 

 the higher southern mountains reaches elevations of from 6,500 to 

 7,200 feet. 



This pine is usually found in pure stands, though at the higher eleva- 

 tions it mingles with sugar, yellow, and Jeffrey pines and white fir, and 

 at lower elevations occurs with knobcone pine, or occasionally with 

 bigcone spruce. In the chaparral stand it occurs chiefly in stands with 

 Qiiercus duinosa and occassionally with Ceanothus cuneatus, and rarely 

 with Ademnostema fasiculatimi. The tree reaches its best development 

 at the edge of the yellow or Jeffrey pine belt where it attains a maximum 

 height of from 80 to 100 feet and a maximum diameter of 40 inches. 

 The usual stands are from 40 to 60 feet in height and 18 to 20 inches 

 in diameter. The tree matures at 100 years when the crown begins 

 to flatten out, though while young the tree retains its branches almost 

 to the ground. 



Coulter pine bears cones as early as eight years and bears seed uni- 

 formly at intervals of from one to five years, though heavy seed years 

 occur at intervals of from three to six years. The seed ripens about 

 the first of September and the cones open slowly, often remaining 

 closed for three years or longer. The seeds are very large and heavy 

 and are not distributed far from the parent tree when liberated. 

 Although the cones remain closed a long period, the seed appears to 

 retain its vitality without much impairment. Fresh seed gave a nur- 

 sery germination of 95.9 per cent, two-year-old seed gave 94.3 per cent, 

 while of seed obtained from cones which had but partially opened the 

 fourth year, 82.3 per cent germinated. 



This characteristic of the tree has an important bearing on the repro- 

 duction of the species. As a rule, except on the better sites, one can 

 seldom find seedlings near the parent trees. After a fire in stands with 

 coulter pine, a number of seedlings appear on the burned ground, either 

 from the seed liberated from the closed cones or from dormant seed on 

 the ground. The latter is less likely than the former, however, as the 

 heat from the burning litter probably destroys a large proportion of the 

 seed which escaped rodent destruction. On one burned northwesterly 

 slope where there had been a scattered stand of coulter pine previous 

 to the fire, a series of plots 25 feet square showed that 14.3 seeds 

 germinated per plot the spring following the fire, and 7.6 per plot the 

 following year. All the litter had been burned clean, while a number 



