Description: Widely distributed pine that may be tall with narrow, dense, conical crown, or small with broad, rounded crown; three geographic spp.

Height: to 10 m (Shore Pine) or up to 50m (interior subspecies)

Diameter: 0.3-0.5 m (Shore Pine), or up to 0.9m

Needles: evergreen; two in bundle; 3-7 cm long. Stout, slightly flattened and often twisted; yellow-green to dark green.

Bark: light brown, thin and scaly; or in Shore Pine (the coastal variety), dark brown, thick, furrowed into scaly plates.

Flowers/Cones: Males sometimes in 3rd year from seed, in dense whorl, shed pollen in April. Female dull dark red, 2-4 at tip of, or half way along shoot. 2-5cm long; egg-shaped, stalkless, oblique or 1-sided at base, shiny yellow-brown; remaining closed on tree for many years (or in varieties opening); cone-scales raised, rounded, keeled, with tiny, slender prickle.

Habitat: High mountains on mostly well-drained soils, often in pure stands; Shore Pine in peat bogs, muskegs, and dry, sandy sites.

Range: SE Alaska and C Yukon south on Pacific coast to N California, south through Sierra Nevada to S California, and south in Rocky Mountains to S Colorado; also local in Black Hills of South Dakota and N Baja California; coastal variety from sea-level to 600m, inland varieties at 450-900m in north and 2100-3500m in south.

Lodgepole is one of the most widely distributed New World pines and the only conifer native in both Alaska and Mexico. Name refers to use by Indians of the slender trunks as poles for their teepees. Shore Pine (var. contorta, Pacific coast), is a small tree with spreading crown, thick, furrowed bark, short leaves, and oblique cones pointing backward, open at maturity but remain attached. It was discovered by Douglas in 1825, and was in cultivation in the UK by 1855.

Sierra Lodgepole (var. murrayana (Grev. & Balf.) Engelm., Cascades of SW Washington and W Oregon, the Sierra Nevada, and south to N Baja California), is a tall narrow tree with thin, scaly bark, relatively broad leaves; symmetrical, lightweight cones open at maturity and shed within a few years. Discovered and introduced to the UK by Jeffrey who collected cones for the Oregon Association in autumn 1852. This variety appears to grow very slowly in the UK.

Lodgepole Pine or Rocky Mountain L.P. (var. latifolia Engelm., Rocky Mountain region), is a tall, narrow tree with thin, scaly bark, long needles and cones often oblique and pointing outward. This variety is adapted to forest fires by serotiny: cones remain tightly closed on the tree for many years until fire destroys the forest. Heat causes the resin to melt, then after wetting (which ensures that the fires are over), the cones open when they next dry out, the seeds fall to the bare ground to begin a new forest. Huge areas of this effect can be seen in Greater Yellowstone where the bare ground caused by the extensive fires of 1988 are now being replaced by a young forest of almost pure Lodgepoles. This variety was introduced to the UK shortly before 1855.

Information: Audubon (1980), FNA 2 (1993)

Source: Weasdale Nurseries, Newbiggin-on-Lune, Cumbria. These are coning and do indeed appear to be serotinous, suggesting that they are var. latifolia. We also have one seedling from a small batch of seed gathered at Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite, which is var. murrayana

Purchased: 1993.03.16, by Amanda Johnston, 25 @ 6-12".

Planted: 1993.04.03: 7 in US Strip, tall conifer/mixed zones, 1 in barn triangle. 1993.04.04, 2 more in barn triangle. Quite a few trees were left heeled in in the garden for a couple of years, during which they made good growth. These were later planted out as infill, some in quite unfavourable sites.

Progress: Varies considerably according to the initial vigour of the stock (the 25 transplants varied from about 8 to 18 inches) and the site. The most vigourous of the original 1993 plantings, in one of the better sites, was 2.35 m on 1998.10.07 and 5.7m on 2004.09.27. Several other trees in the most favourable sites are up in the 5 to 5.5m class. Even those trees in poorer sites (under shade from adjacent large trees) continue to grow, and do so straight up - unlike many of our other trees which show a stronger tendency to deviate toward the light.

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