Pinus lambertiana (sugar pine) description

Pinus lambertiana

Douglas 1827

Common names

Sugar pine, big or great sugar pine (Peattie 1950), pino de azucar, ocote (Perry 1991).

Taxonomic notes

No synonyms. Type locale the "headwaters of the Multnomah River", where it was found in August 1825 by David Douglas (1827). There are no known natural hybrids, though it shares subsection Strobus Loudon with some 24 other species. However, a molecular analysis that included nearly all species in subgenus Strobus found that P. lambertiana is the most strongly polyphyetic of all the white pines, a result that the authors attributed primarily to incomplete lineage sorting (Syring et al. 2007). In other words, this plethora of white pines has arisen quite rapidly in evolutionary times, possibly within the past 10 million years, and many alleles persist in different species despite the presence of barriers to their movement between species. This is particularly true in species that have quite low mutation rates coupled with large genomes and large population sizes; P. lambertiana is such a species.

Description

Trees to 30-50(75) m tall and 90-180(330) cm in diameter, massive (the largest species in the genus), straight. Crown narrowly conic, becoming rounded or flat-topped. Bark cinnamon- to gray-brown, deeply furrowed, plates long, scaly. Branches long, nearly horizontal, bearing cones near the ends, distal branches ascending; twigs gray-green to red-tan, aging gray, mostly puberulent. Buds cylindro-ovoid, red-brown, to 8 mm, resinous. Leaves 5 per fascicle, spreading to ascending, persisting 2-4 years, 5-10 cm × 1-1.5(2) mm, sharp, 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)1.5-2 cm, shed early. Staminate cones ellipsoid-cylindric, to 15 mm, yellow. Ovulate 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, 25-50 cm (the longest of any conifer), shiny yellow-brown, stalks 6-15 cm; apophyses somewhat thickened; umbo terminal, depressed, resinous, slightly excurved. Seeds obovoid, oblique apically; body 1-2 cm, deep brown; wing broad, 2-3 cm. 2n=24 (Little 1980, Kral 1993). See García Esteban et al. (2004) for a detailed characterization of the wood anatomy.

It is easily distinguished from P. monticola 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) (Kral 1993).

Distribution and Ecology

From about 45° latitude in US: Oregon S (including W Nevada) to S California and Mex: Baja California Norte, S in the Sierra San Pedro Mártir, at 300-3200 m depending on latitude etc. Occurs on various soils, usually in mountains, usually in mixed conifer forests (Little 1980). Hardy to Zone 7 (cold hardiness limit between -17.7°C and -12.2°C) (Bannister and Neuner 2001). See also Thompson et al. (1999).

Distribution data from USGS (1999).

Remarkable Specimens

Pinus lambertiana is the largest and the second-tallest species in Pinus. Some of the largest trees have been found at surprisingly low elevations, 750 to 1000 m, where they have to cope with intense summer heat (over 40°C) and rather frequent fire; many large trees have died in the extensive Sierra Nevada fires of the early 21st century. The following table summarizes information on the largest specimens ever found in habitat. Note that some of these haven't been checked since their discovery and may have died from drought, fire, or other causes, which have been widespread in the Sierra Nevada in recent years.


Status	DBH, cm	Height, m	Date measured	Comments
Dead	560	65.53	1826.10.26	Found by David Douglas. See detailed account below.
Dead	352	66.1	2001	From 1930 to 2013 the largest known pine was the Whelan Pine, stem volume 254.6m³ (ca. 1997), in Dorrington, CA (Van Pelt 2001). This tree declined for several years and in 2013 succumbed to a variety of diseases.
Alive	265	71.9	2024.08.25	Discovered in Yosemite National Park by Michael Taylor in 1981 but superlative size, 163.1m³, not established until 2024 (Gibbard 2024).
Alive	293	73.4	2015.07	Discovered by Carl Casey in Calaveras Big Trees State Park. Volume at least 153 m³ (Carl Casey email 2015.09.07; Michael Taylor email 2015.10.16; Casey [2015] presents photographs).
Alive	274	72.85	2020.11	Found by Michael Taylor, John Montague and Duncan Kennedy in the Sierra Nevada of California, following exploratory analysis using LIDAR data.
Dead	241	83.45	2015.10.09	Discovered by Michael Taylor in Yosemite National Park, in an area famed for its extremely tall trees (of several species). It was the tallest sugar pine ever found. The area was affected by the Rim Fire of 2013, but 2014 surveys verified that most of the big trees in the area had survived the blaze (Michael Taylor emails 2015.10.11, 2015.10.15). Evidently it has since died, since in 2022 Taylor reported the tallest living sugar pine as in Oregon.
Dead	241	68.27	pre-1966	The Mammoth, near Prospect, was the largest sugar pine ever recorded in Oregon; it died in 1966 from bark beetle infestation (Oregon Travel Information Council 2016).
Alive	244.9	77.2	2012	Near Jackson Creek in the Umpqua National Forest, east of Tiller, Oregon (Fattig 2012). Vandals tried (and failed) to kill this tree by girdling it with a chainsaw in 2000, which is an example of why it is generally a bad idea to publicize the exact location of record-setting trees.

Historically, sugar pine was considered to be the tallest pine in the world. Sadly, this is no longer true, and as of 2022 the tallest one is a mere 78.94 m, growing near the Rogue River in southwest Oregon, near an even taller ponderosa pine. Another 7 ponderosas are also known to be taller. Historically, the tallest sugar pines were found in the Sierra Nevada, and as recently as 2000 the Yosemite Giant was undisputed as the tallest pine in the world at 81.7 m (Van Pelt 2001). The severe droughts and fires of the 21st century have decimated the great sugar pines of the Sierra, though, and the tallest trees are now all known from southwest Oregon and extreme northern California. Due to extensive LIDAR surveys performed by Michael Taylor since about 2010, the locations of those trees are now known with high confidence. The 20 tallest sugar pines are all over 76 m tall, and the 50 tallest are all over 73 m. Climate change forecasts for southwest Oregon, however, predict a high risk of severe drought and increasingly common fires, so these trees are also at high risk.

The largest sugar pine ever recorded was supposedly found by David Douglas on the very day that he discovered this species to science: October 26, 1826. Prefaratory to this account, I should say that Douglas' work has been extensively reviewed, and he has a reputation for accurately reporting his facts. In his journal for that day, he writes:

"New or strange things seldom fail to make great impressions, and often at first we are liable to over-rate them; and lest I should never see my friends to tell them verbally of this most beautiful and immensely large tree, I now state the dimensions of the largest one I could find that was blown down by the wind: Three feet [1 m] from the ground, 57 feet 9 inches in circumference [5.60 m diam.]; 134 feet [40.84 m] from the ground, 17 feet 5 inches [1.69 m diam.]; extreme length, 215 feet [65.53 m]". These measurements are repeated in his paper to the Linnaean Society (Douglas 1827).

Although it is not strictly relevant, I will finish the quote, which gives a good picture of Douglas' life as a plant-hunter:

"The trees are remarkably straight; bark uncommonly smooth for such large timber, of a whitish or light brown colour; and yields a great quantity of gum of a bright amber colour. The large trees are destitute of branches, generally for two-thirds the length of the tree; branches pendulous, and the cones hanging from their points like small sugar-loaves in a grocer’s shop, it being only on the very largest trees that cones are seen, and the putting myself in possession of three cones (all I could) nearly brought my life to an end. Being unable to climb or hew down any, I took my gun and was busy clipping them from the branches with ball when eight Indians came at the report of my gun. They were all painted with red earth, armed with bows, arrows, spears of bone, and flint knives, and seemed to me anything but friendly. I endeavoured to explain to them what I wanted and they seemed satisfied and sat down to smoke, but had no sooner done so than I perceived one string his bow and another sharpen his flint knife with a pair of wooden pincers and hang it on the wrist of the right hand, which gave me ample testimony of their inclination. To save myself I could not do by flight, and without any hesitation I went backwards six paces and cocked my gun, and then pulled from my belt one of my pistols, which I held in my left hand. I was determined to fight for life. As I as much as possible endeavoured to preserve my coolness and perhaps did so, I stood eight or ten minutes looking at them and they at me without a word passing, till one at last, who seemed to be the leader, made a sign for tobacco, which I said they should get on condition of going and fetching me some cones. They went, and as soon as out of sight I picked up my three cones and a few twigs, and made a quick retreat to my camp, which I gained at dusk."

There are not many good data on tree ages. Muir (1894) says 800 years but provides no more information. There is another record of 760 years, also without supporting details (Carder 1995), and a record of a ring-count (no records kept, but the source is reliable) of 614 rings (Michael Taylor email 2017.11.24). The oldest known living specimen with a crossdated age is 435 years, documented in a tree-ring chronology covering the period 1576-2010 (crossdated after 1608), collected in the Sierra San Pedro Martír of Baja California, Mexico by Dave Meko (doi.org/10.25921/s9yq-jg84). This site was used in a long-term reconstruction of soil moisture balance (Stahle et al. 2016). I have seen this species growing on extremely poor and virtually fireproof sites (basically no soil, just fractured granite bedrock) in the Sierra San Pedro Martír, and it is not surprising that this area has yielded exceptionally old individuals. However, a dead tree nearly as old, 427 years, is recorded from Yosemite National Park, where it died from bark beetle infestation following the Rim Fire in 2013 (doi.org/10.25921/kea3-1694).

Ethnobotany

A "sugary" resin high in cyclitols exudes from the sweet-scented fresh-cut wood (Kral 1993). Muir (1894) reports: "The sugar, from which the common name is derived, is to my taste the best of sweets-better than maple sugar. It exudes from the heartwood, where wounds have been made, either by forest fires, or the ax, in the shape of irregular, crisp, candy-like kernels, which are crowded together in masses of considerable size, like clusters of resin-beads... Indians are fond of it, but on account of its laxative properties only small quantities may be eaten." David Douglas (1914) reports that indians gathered and ate the seeds. I have heard that heating the resin will caramelize the sugars and remove the laxative effect, and perhaps this is how it was historically prepared.

Logging practices of the early 20th century, at which time most of the big stands of old-growth sugar pine were logged, are described by Muir (1894), who notes that it was a sought-after species for shingles as well as lumber. It is currently valued timber tree due to its high dimensional stability, workability, and potentially rapid growth rate (Burns & Honkala 1990). However, harvest of sugar pine far exceeds regrowth (Kral 1993).

The species has seen a bit of use in dendrochronology. Holmes et al. (1986) collected a chronology in the California Coast Range. There are also two published fire history studies.

Observations

Seen at many locations in CA and OR. Historically, the species reached its best development in the northern Sierra Nevada, in the area centered on Calaveras Big Trees State Park. This area was logged extensively in the late 1800s and early 1900s but still contains the largest individual trees. The forests of Yosemite, south of Yosemite Valley, are also a showcase for this species. Muir (1894) provides an outstanding description of these Sierran forests. The sugar pine grows as a krummholz tree a few feet below the 3100 m summit of Picacho del Diablo in the Sierra San Pedro Mártir, and as a grand forest tree lower in the range. See the Observations section of P. jeffreyi for more on these forests.

Remarks

The epithet honors Aylmer Bourke Lambert (1761-1842), British botanist, most often remembered today for his wonderfully illustrated folio A Description of the Genus Pinus (several editions 1803-1832, 1803 is linked), but he published the first descriptions of at least 25 conifer species. He is also recalled in Podocarpus lamberti.

This species is commonly described as having the longest pine cones, with the Guinness Book of World Records (accessed 2023.03.13) giving the title to a 58.2 cm long specimen submitted on 2000.10.15. I have heard anecdotal reports of even longer cones on Pinus coulteri but have found no evidence to support the claim, although P. coulteri unquestionably has more massive cones.

White pine blister rust (Cronartium ribicola), an introduced fungal disease, has decimated formerly extensive stands of this and certain other white pines (Little 1980).

This species is the primary host for the dwarf mistletoe Arceuthobium californicum (Hawksworth and Wiens 1996).

Pinus lambertiana is singularly resistant to hybridization (no natural hybrids are known), but fertile crosses with the Chinese pine Pinus armandii have been found to have high resistance to blister rust (Burns & Honkala 1990).

Citations

Casey, Carl. 2015. This Is It! The Quest for a New Champion Sugar Pine. Loose Leaf: The Official Blog of American Forests, http://www.americanforests.org/blog/quest-for-a-new-champion-sugar-pine, accessed 2015.10.13, now defunct.

Douglas, David. 1827. An account of a new species of Pinus, native of California... Trans. Linn. Soc. London 15:497-500. Available: Biodiversity Heritage Library, accessed 2023.02.22.

Douglas, David. 1914. Journal kept by David Douglas during his travels in North America 1823—1827. London: William Wesley & Son. Right-click HERE to download a copy (PDF, 25 MB).

Fattig, Paul. 2012.06.04. Tree hunters find world's tallest (known) sugar pine. Oregon: Medford Mail Tribune.

Gibbard, Tressa. 2024.09.21. World’s largest sugar pine discovered in Yosemite. Tahoe Daily Tribune. https://www.tahoedailytribune.com/news/worlds-largest-sugar-pine-discovered-in-yosemite/, accessed 2024.09.23.

Oregon Travel Information Council. 2016.11.28. Gone but not forgotten – tree memorials. https://oregontic.com/news-press/gone-not-forgotten-tree-memorials/, accessed 2020.11.15.

Stahle, David W., Edward R. Cook, Dorian J. Burnette, Jose Villanueva, Julian Cerano, Jordan N. Burns, Daniel Griffin, Benjamin I. Cook, Rodolfo Acuna, Max C.A. Torbenson, Paul Sjezner, and Ian M. Howard. 2016. The Mexican Drought Atlas: Tree-ring reconstructions of the soil moisture balance during the late pre-Hispanic, colonial, and modern eras. Quaternary Science Reviews 149:34-60. doi: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2016.06.018

Syring, J., K. Farrell, R. Businsky, R. Cronn, and A. Liston. 2007. Widespread genealogical nonmonophyly in species of Pinus subgenus Strobus. Systematic Biology 56(2):163-181.