ABSTRACT
Some 25 pines cover western North American lands. Principal soft pines, those with soft wood and exhibiting gradual transition from springwood to summerwood, 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 northern Idaho (the Inland Empire) and western Montana’s Bitterroot Mountains, and south through western Washington, western Oregon, and through the Sierra Nevada of California. Sugar pine, largest of the pines, exhibits its great size especially along the North Fork of the Tuolumne River and the North Fork of the Stanislaus River in northern California. Jeffrey pine may persist in sites too dry for ponderosa pine, for the former is one of the most drought-resistant of all pines.
