Flora of North America species comparison

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Pinus lambertiana

sugar pine
Habit Trees to 75m; trunk to 3.3m diam., massive, straight; crown narrowly conic, becoming rounded.
Bark

cinnamon- to gray-brown, deeply furrowed, plates long, scaly.
Branches

spreading, distal branches ascending;

twigs gray-green to red-tan, aging gray, mostly puberulent.
Buds

cylindro-ovoid, red-brown, to 0.8cm, resinous.
Leaves

5 per fascicle, spreading to ascending, persisting 2–4 years, 5–10cm × (0.9–)1–1.5(–2)mm, straight, slightly twisted, pliant, blue-green, abaxial surface with only a few lines evident, adaxial surfaces with evident white stomatal lines, margins finely serrulate, apex acuminate;

sheath (1–)1.5–2cm, shed early.
Pollen cones

ellipsoid-cylindric, to 15mm, yellow.
Seed(s)

cones maturing in 2 years, shedding seeds and falling soon thereafter, often clustered, pendent, symmetric, cylindric before opening, lance-cylindric to ellipsoid-cylindric when open, 25–50cm, yellow-brown, stalks 6–15cm;

apophyses somewhat thickened;

umbo terminal, depressed, resinous, slightly excurved.
2n

=24.

Pinus lambertiana
Habitat Montane dry to moist forests
Elevation 330–3200m (1100–10500ft)
Distribution
from FNA
CA; NV; OR; Mexico in n Baja California
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

The largest species of the genus, Pinus lambertiana also has the longest seed cone in the genus. It is an important timber tree with harvest far exceeding regrowth. It is easily distinguished from P. monticola and P. strobus by its larger cones and thicker cone scales with larger seeds; it is somewhat less reliably distinguished by its leaves, which are slightly wider and more tapering-tipped and have some stomatal lines evident on the abaxial surfaces (the lines not evident in P. monticola and P. strobus). A "sugary" resin high in cyclitols exudes from the sweet-scented fresh-cut wood.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 2.
Parent taxa Pinaceae > Pinus
Sibling taxa
P. albicaulis, P. aristata, P. attenuata, P. balfouriana, P. banksiana, P. cembroides, P. clausa, P. contorta, P. coulteri, P. echinata, P. edulis, P. elliottii, P. engelmannii, P. flexilis, P. glabra, P. jeffreyi, P. leiophylla, P. longaeva, P. monophylla, P. monticola, P. muricata, P. palustris, P. ponderosa, P. pungens, P. quadrifolia, P. radiata, P. resinosa, P. rigida, P. sabiniana, P. serotina, P. strobiformis, P. strobus, P. sylvestris, P. taeda, P. torreyana, P. virginiana, P. washoensis
Name authority Douglas: Trans. Linn. Soc. London, Bot. 15: 500. (1827)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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