Got Pine? - Your 60-Second Guide to Naming your Pine

Got Pine? - Your 60-Second Guide to Naming your Pine by J. Zimmerman, Ph.D.

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Trees and Shrubs of California by John Stuart and John Sawyer.
An accessible field guide to California's native tree species and most of its common shrub species. Illustrated by over 100 line drawings, 300 range maps, and 40 color photographs.

Quickstart by counting the number of needles in a bundle from your tree.

You know you have a pine - but is it the rare Torrey? Is it the rich, dark Monterey? Or the longest-coned sugar?

This handy route map leads you to your answer in a minute through less than a half-dozen questions. Select each answer interactively with your cursor. Then you jump automatically to the next question.

But if nothing fits here, then you probably have a non-pine, a tree that is not in the Pine genus, Pinus. even if it's in the Pine family, Pinaceae .

Go with the Flow to Track Down the Name of your Californian Pine Tree.

First count the number of needles in two or three mature bundles of pine leaves on your native California pine tree.

How many pine needles are in each bundle?

Depending on the typical number of needles, go to the sections below marked: Five (5), Four (4), Three (3), or Two (2).

Five (5) needles in each bundle

If the mature needles are no more than 1.5" long, then:
- if your tree grows west of the spine of the Sierra Nevada: foxtail pine (P.balfouriana).
- if your tree grows east of the spine of the Sierra Nevada: (great basin) bristlecone pine (P.longaeva).
Otherwise, if the needles are over 7" long: the rare Torrey pine (P.torreyana).
Otherwise, the needles are 1.5" to 7" long. If the cones are over 1 foot long: sugar pine (P.lambertiana).
Otherwise, if the cone-scales are thin (you may also notice that the tree grows in moist mountain soils and maybe from 50 feet to 100 feet tall): western white pine (P.monticola).
Otherwise, the cone-scales are thick. Grows on dry rocky slopes as high as timberline; is less than 50 feet:

If the cones are up to 6" long and yellowish brown: limber pine (P.flexilis).
Otherwise the cones are up to 3" long and purplish brown, and the bark is smooth white-gray, developing scales (but not furrowed like limber pine): whitebark pine (P.albicaulis).

Four (4) needles in each bundle

In California, you have nut pine or parry pinyon (P.quadrifolia).

Three (3) needles in each bundle

Your 3-needle-to-a-bundle pine is most likely California's most common conifer: ponderosa pine (P.ponderosa). Check for needles to 10", roughness between fingers when pulled from tip to base, and 3"-5" prickly cones.
Otherwise, if the branches are laden with many cones, closed and open, young and old, then you have a "closed" pine. The scales on its cones are closed unless very hot conditions (fire or a very warm day) make some of them open. For a closed pine, if the foliage is:
- pale yellowish green, you have a knobcone pine (P.attenuata), and you are probably on sparsely vegetated serpentine outcrops;
- glossy and bright blue-green, you have a Monterey pine (P.radiata), and you are probably in one of its rare coastal or island locations (or in an urban forest where this pine is popularly planted!).
Otherwise check for:
- The strong smell of vanilla or pineapple in the fissures in the dark-red bark: Jeffrey pine (P.jeffreyi). Check for stiff needles to 10" and large smooth cones whose prickles turn inward.
- Heavy plump cones (12" long, 6" diameter) with sharply hooked scale tips: Coulter (or big cone) pine (P.coulteri). Check for thick, rigid, deep blue-green needles to 12" long.
- Droopy needles to 10", which indicate gray (or foothill or digger) pine (P.sabiniana). To confirm, check for a spindly dark-gray trunk, or apple-sized to pineapple-sized prickly cones with especially vicious hooklike spurs at each cone's base.

Two (2) needles in each bundle

If the needles are over 3" and up to 6" long: bishop pine (P.muricata).
Otherwise the needles are 3" or less, and often twisted: lodgepole pine (P.contorta). Of the four subspecies of lodgepole pine, the most common in California are spp. murrayana or Sierra-Cascade lodgepole pine (also called tamarac pine) and spp. contorta or coastal lodgepole pine (also called shore pine or beach pine).

Resources - Related pages.

Trees and Shrubs of California by John Stuart and John Sawyer.
An accessible field guide to California's native tree species and most of its common shrub species. Illustrated by over 100 line drawings, 300 range maps, and 40 color photographs.

Ronald M. Lanner's Conifers of California
Home and List of Articles.
Pines: Introducing Pines, Pine Fun Facts.
Got Conifer -- How You Can Tell What Kind of Conifer You Have.
Take a hike. Some recommendations from George Wuerthner's California's Wilderness Areas: Mountains and Coastal Ranges.