SUGAR PINE 



(Pinus Lambertiana) 



THIS is the largest pine of the United States, and probably is the 

 largest true pine in the world. Its rival, the Kauri pine of New 

 Zealand, is not a pine according to the classification of botanists; and 

 that leaves the sugar pine supreme, as far as the world has been explored. 

 David Douglas, the first to describe the species, reported a tree eighteen 

 feet in diameter and 245 feet high, in southern Oregon. No tree of 

 similar size has been reported since; but trunks six, ten, and even twelve 

 feet through, and more than 200 high are not rare. 



The range of sugar pine extends from southern Oregon to lower 

 California. Through California it follows the Sierra Nevada mountains 

 in a comparatively narrow belt. In Oregon it descends within 1,000 feet 

 of sea level, but the lower limit of its range gradually rises as it follows 

 the mountains southward, until in southern California it is 8,000 or 

 10,000 feet above the sea. Its choice of situation is in the mountain 

 belt where the annual precipitation is forty inches or more. The deep 

 winter snows of the Sierras do not hurt it. The young trees bear 

 abundant limbs covering the trunks nearly or quite to the ground, and 

 are of perfect conical shape. When they are ten or fifteen feet tall they 

 may be entirely covered in snow which accumulates to a depth of a 

 dozen feet or more. The little pines are seldom injured by the load, but 

 their limbs shed the snow until it covers the highest twig. The conse- 

 quence is that a crooked sugar pine trunk is seldom seen, though a 

 considerable part of the tree's youth may have been spent under tons 

 of snow. Later in life the lower limbs die and drop, leaving clean boles 

 which assure abundance of clear lumber in the years to come. 



The tree is nearly always known as sugar pine, though it may be 

 called big pine or great pine to distinguish it from firs, cedars, and other 

 softwoods with which it is associated. The name is due to a product 

 resembling sugar which exudes from the heartwood when the tree has 

 been injured by fires, and which dries in white, brittle excrescences on 

 the surface. Its taste is sweet, with a suggestion of pitch which is 

 not unpleasant. The principle has been named "pinite." 



The needles of sugar pine are in clusters of five and are about four 

 inches long. They are deciduous the second and third years. The 

 cones are longer than cones of any other pine of this country but those 

 of the Coulter pine are a little heavier. Extreme length of 22 inches for 

 the sugar pine cone has been recorded, but the average is from 12 to 15 

 inches. Cones open, shed their seeds the second year, and fall the third. 



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