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Pinus ponderosa, commonly known as the ponderosa pine, [3] bull pine, blackjack pine, [4] western yellow-pine, [5] or filipinus pine, [6] is a very large pine tree species of variable habitat native to mountainous regions of western North America. It is the most widely distributed pine species in North America.
Ponderosa pine forest is a plant association and plant community dominated by ponderosa pine and found in western North America. It is found from the British Columbia to Durango, Mexico . [ 1 ] In the south and east, ponderosa pine forest is the climax forest , while in the more northern part of its range, it can transition to Douglas-fir or ...
The pure stands of Rocky Mountain ponderosa pine forest receive about 15–20 inches (380–510 mm) of annual precipitation. [7] In the northern Rockies, about 40-50% falls in April through September, while in the southern Rockies, about 66-75% falls during these months. [7]
The region is dominated by Western ponderosa pine, lodgepole pine, Douglas-fir, and grand fir, with western larch, ninebark, snowberry, Rocky Mountain maple, serviceberry, mountain big sagebrush, low sagebrush, big huckleberry, grouse huckleberry, twinflower, prince's pine, elk sedge, and pinegrass. Higher elevations support subalpine fir.
Jeffrey pine wood and ponderosa pine wood are sold together as yellow pine. [6] Both kinds of wood are hard (with a Janka hardness of 550 lbf (2,400 N)), but the western yellow pine wood is less dense than southern yellow pine wood (28 lb/cu ft (0.45 g/cm 3 ) versus 35 lb/cu ft (0.56 g/cm 3 ) for shortleaf pine).
In 1933 the Boise Basin Experimental Forest was created on 8,740 acres (35.4 km 2) of the forest near Idaho City to study the management of ponderosa pine. [19] The Lucky Peak Nursery was established in 1959 to produce trees for planting on burned or logged lands on the national forests of the Intermountain region. [20] [21]
Significant changes are also occurring in whitebark pine populations of high-elevation forests. In northern Idaho, stands have decreased by anywhere between 50 and 100%, due in part to fire suppression and white pine blister rust, a non-native fungus that has defied control. Fewer than 1 in 10,000 trees is resistant.
The ponderosa pine forests were close to the developing population centers at the forest-prairie edge. The scale of the loss of ponderosa pine habitat is demonstrated best in several hundred paired photographs from the early 20th century and 1980s. However, nearly all the paired photographs also reveal that the most important feature of the ...