Pinus ponderosa

Ponderosa pine, western yellow pine, Western Yellow Pine

Family: Pinaceae · Type: shrub · Native

Ponderosa pine is a native conifer found in various California mountain ranges in conifer forests and mixed woodlands at elevations ranging from low to high mountain zones. Flowering in spring, this tree produces distinctive cones that are green-brown to dark purple when immature, measuring 7 to 15 centimeters long. Growing to heights potentially exceeding 68 meters with massive trunks up to 2.2 meters wide, it develops a mature crown that is short and either conic or flat-topped with deeply furrowed bark that forms yellow-scaled plates. Its needles grow in clusters of three, reaching 12 to 26 centimeters long and displaying a deep yellow-green color with a persistent sheath. The tree's mature bark is particularly notable for its shallow, well-spaced furrows and outer scales with distinctive yellow inner surfaces.

California counties: San Bernardino, Lake, El Dorado, Plumas, Butte, Los Angeles, Madera, Riverside, Mendocino, Mariposa, Inyo, Kern, Mono, Lassen, Fresno, Ventura, Siskiyou, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Tuolumne, Tulare, Shasta, Tehama, Trinity, San Diego, Amador, Calaveras, Nevada, Modoc, Humboldt, Santa Clara, Monterey, Yuba, Del Norte, Napa, Sonoma, Sierra, Glenn, San Benito, Alameda, Placer, San Luis Obispo, Stanislaus

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.