Some 25 pines cover western North American lands. Principal soft pines, those with soft wood and exhibiting gradual transition from spring wood to summer wood, include western white pine and sugar pine.
The most abundant hard pines, those usually with dense wood and exhibiting abrupt transition from springwood to summerwood are lodgepole pine, ponderosa pine, Jeffrey pine and jack pine.
High value western white pine grows from British Columbia south into north Idaho and western Montana’s Bitterroot Mountains and south through western Washington, western Oregon and through the Sierra Nevada of California.
Within this geographic range the seral tree is found from sea level to 2000 feet in moist valleys and up to 7000 feet on dry, exposed locales.
The species grows to 11,000 feet in the San Jacinto Mountains in California. The range of western white pine extends far beyond where the tree grows commercially and listed as a cover type.
Sugar pine, largest of the opine, exhibits its great size especially along the North Fork of the Tuolumne River and the North Fork of the Stanislaus River in Northern California.
Excellent growth is also noted along the San Joaquin and Feather River on the west facing slope of Sierra Nevada from 5000 to 7000 feet.
Stands are established from 1000 to 10,000 feet, the latter elevation in the Southern extremity.
Ponderosa Pine grows in commercially valuable stands throughout the West and beyond in the Great Plains. Dendrologists have charted five races of the species: Black Hill, Inland Empire (including British Columbia), Pacific, Arizona and California. Coats Range trees may be another race.
Jeffrey pine, earlier considered a variety of ponderosa pine, has a limited range in the southern Cascades to below the Sierra Nevada in California.
The tree’s elevational range is from 3500 feet to 10,000 feet, form north to south.
Pine Forest of The West of North American
