Puget Sound Native Tree
Botanical Garden
People have created across the United States lists of the largest individual tree of many species as well as typical size of each in a mature forest. They call the largest tree a CHAMPION TREE, for bragging rights.
Western White Pine
Typical dimensions of a large tree of this species in a mature forest:
Height:
Diameter:
Age:
Champion tree for this species:
Height:
Diameter:
Age:
150 feet
5 feet
200 years?
230'
7 ft
???
5- While not so common as the other large firs of lower Puget Sound, the Western White Pine has a greater range of environments.
Click the picture to enlarge it
Click again to return to this page
Western White Pine
pinus monticola
Western white pine (Pinus monticola) is a large, evergreen conifer native to western North America, known for its soft, blue-green needles in bundles of five, distinctive long cones, and lightweight, stable wood valuable for construction, paneling, and doors; it's Idaho's state tree but struggles with white pine blister rust.
Western White Pine
This tree species was growing at the Dolphin Place location when the property was purchased in 1973.
Exact data was not collected at the time. The following is data recorded in 2020.
Largest tree for this species within Dolphin Place Open Space:
Height:
Diameter:
100 ft historic
3 feet historic
Western white pine cones are long, slender, curved (like a banana), and hang from the upper branches, usually 5 to 12 inches long, with soft, thin, yellowish-brown scales often tipped with sticky, white resin, maturing from greenish/purplish to golden/dark brown and easily identified by their size and shape compared to other white pines.
The bark of a Western White Pine changes with age: young trees have smooth, greyish-green bark, but it develops into a distinctive, dark grey to purplish-grey texture with deep furrows and thick, rectangular, scaly plates that look like a checkerboard or puzzle pieces, often with rusty-brown or cinnamon hues underneath the scales. At Dolphin Place the bark of the Western White Pine hosts a yellowish powder lichen while the hemlock powder lichen is avocado green (if you can't see the needles).
Western white pine needles are soft, flexible, blue-green (whitish or glaucous), 2-4 inches long, and grow in bundles of five (fascicles), with fine teeth on their edges and distinct white stomatal lines on the inner surface, giving them a delicate, feathery look. They are slender and straight, persisting for a few years before dropping, and their base has a temporary sheath.