Pine+Trees

The Limber Pine is a species of pine tree that occurs in the mountains of the Western United States and Canada, specifically the subalpine areas of the Rocky Mountains from southwest Alberta south to the Mexican border; the Great Basin mountains of Nevada and Utah; and the White Mountains, the east slope of the Sierra Nevada and the San Bernardino Mountains in California with a small disjunct population in the Black Hills of South Dakota. It is typically a high-elevation pine, often marking the tree line either on its own, or with Whitebark Pine, either of the bristlecone pines, or Lodgepole Pine. In favourable conditions, it makes a tree to 20 m, rarely 25 m tall, but on exposed tree line sites only 5-10 m tall.

Limber Pine is a member of the white pine group, Pinus subgenus Strobus, and like all members of that group, the leaves ('needles') are in fascicles (bundles) of five, with a deciduous sheath. This distinguishes it from the Lodgepole Pine, with two needles per fascicle, and the bristlecone pines, which share five needles per fascicle but have a semi-persistent sheath.

Distinguishing Limber Pine from the related Whitebark Pine, also a white pine, is very much more difficult, and can only easily be done by the cones. In Limber Pine, the cones are 6-12 cm long where the species overlap, green when immature, and open to release the seeds; the scales are not fragile. In Whitebark Pine, the cones are 4-7 cm long, dark purple when immature, and do not open on drying, but are fragile and are pulled apart by birds (see below) to release the seeds. A useful clue resulting is that Whitebark Pines almost never have intact old cones lying under them, whereas Limber Pines usually do.

Lodgepole pine,

limber pine,

jack pine,