General: Pine Family (Pinaceae). Ponderosa pine is a large tree that lives 300 to 600 years and reaches heights of 30 to 50 m tall and 0.6 to 1.3 m in diameter. The oldest trees can exceed 70 m in height and 2 m in diameter. The bottom one-half of the straight trunk is typically without branches. The crown of ponderosa pine is broadly conical to round-shaped. The bark is characteristically orange-brown with a scaly plate-like appearance. Twigs are stout, up to 2 cm think, orange-brown, and rough. Needles are 12 to 28 cm long, thin and pointed with toothed edges, occur in bundles of three, and give a tufted appearance to the twig. Buds are up to 2 cm long, 1 cm wide, red-brown with white-fringed scale margins. Male cones are orange or yellow and are located in small clusters near the tips of the branches. The female cone is oval, woody, 8 to 15 cm long, with a small prickle at the tip of each scale. Flowering occurs from April to June of the first year, and cones mature and shed winged seeds in August and September of the second year.

Distribution: Ponderosa pine is distributed from southern British Columbia through Washington, Oregon, and California, and east to the western portions of Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota. For current distribution, please consult the Plant Profile page for this species on the PLANTS Web site (http://plants.usda.gov).

Habitat: Ponderosa pine trees occur as pure stands or in mixed conifer forests in the mountains. It is an important component of the Interior Ponderosa Pine, Pacific Ponderosa Pine-Douglas fir, and Pacific Ponderosa Pine forest cover types.

In the northwest, it is typically associated with Rocky Mountain Douglas fir, lodgepole pine, grand fir, and western larch. In California it is associated with California white fir, incense cedar, Jeffrey pine, sugar pine, coast Douglas fir, California black oak, and western juniper. In the Rocky Mountains and Utah, it is associated with Rocky Mountain Douglas fir, blue spruce, lodgepole pine, limber pine, and quaking aspen. In the Black Hills, it is associated with quaking aspen, white spruce, and paper birch. In Arizona and New Mexico, it is associated with white fir, Rocky Mountain Douglas fir, blue spruce, quaking aspen, gamble oak, and southwestern white pine at higher elevations and Rocky Mountain juniper, alligator juniper, and Utah juniper at lower elevations (Oliver & Riker 1990).

Shrubs and grasses typically associated with ponderosa pine within its range include ceanothus, sagebrush, oak, snowberry, bluestem, fescue, and polargrass.