Kingdom: Plantae

Phylum: Coniferophyta -- conifers

Class: Pinopsida

Order: Pinales

Family: Pinaceae -- pine

Variety: The inland phase is var. latifolia Engelm. ex S. Wats.

Common Name: lodgepole pine

Species Code: PICO

Origin: Native to dry forest of western North America from Alaska to Oregon and east to Alberta, Wyoming, and Utah. Occurrences on the Palouse are quite possibly the result of plantings.

Rare: no

Form: tree, evergreen, 10-30 (rarely to 50) meters tall, columnar with a rounded crown; bark thin, ridged and furrowed, reddish-brown to nearly black, scaly; buds ovoid, dark reddish-brown, slightly resinous.

Mature height: to 100 feet

Duration: perennial

Longevity: long-lived

Habitat Type: forest

Wetland Indicator Status: FAC-

Leaves: needles in groups of 2, borne alternately along stem, somewhat twisted and curved, yellowish-green, 3-6 cm long, persisting 5-9 years.

Flowers: The conifers are gymnosperms and do not have flowers in the traditional sense.

Fruit: staminate cones clustered, reddish-green, 8-10 mm long, ellipsoid to cylindric, borne on the tips of the branches; ovulate cones ovoid, often curved, 3-6 cm long, scales narrow with armed tips, maturing the second season or serotinous, remaining on the tree long after the seed is shed; seeds compressed, obovoid, reddish-brown, 4-5 mm long, the wing 2-4 times as long as the body; cotyledons 3-7, usually 4.

Characteristics:
P. murrayana in Piper & Beattie 1914, P. contorta var. murrayana in Davis 1953.
Reproduces sexually by seed.
Seedlings do not tolerate shade, but they are more frost tolerant than seedlings of other conifers. Some of the cones are serotinous, remaining on the tree unopened until fire heats them to a certain temperature. This characteristic varies by population and locale and at least some of the cones in a stand usually will open without heat. (Lotan & Critchfield 1990).
94,000 seeds/lb for var. latifolia (Lotan & Critchfield 1990, USDA NRCS PLANTS Database 2009).
Averages 94,000 with a range of 79,000-114,000 seeds/lb for var. latifolia (Krugman & Jenkinson undated).
2n=24.
Wind pollinated.
Plants are monoecious.
The conifers are gymnosperms and do not have flowers in the traditional sense. Instead, the male and female reproductive parts are borne in strobili (cones). The male cones drop from the tree soon after the pollen is released. The female cones shed some of the seed in the second season, while other cones may hold the seed for a longer period.
Native people used the plant medicinally. The cambium layer was eaten for food. The wood has many uses.
Seeds are windborne for short distances. They are also dispersed by animals.
Bears eat the cambium layer. Porcupines eat the phloem and cambium layers. Squirrels and insects of the family Coreidae (Hemiptera) eat the seeds (Lotan & Critchfield 1990).
Rocky Mountain elk make minor use of the plants in fall and winter (Kufeld 1973).
Birds probably use the trees for roosting and nesting.
P. contorta is a host for the larva of the western pine elfin (Incisalia eryphon) butterfly (Pocewicz 2005).

Comments: The only local pine with 2 needles (usually) per fascicle and a spine on the tip of the cone.

Sun requirement: full sun

Soil moisture: mesic

Precipitation: 18-25 inches (USDA NRCS PLANTS Database 2009).

Fire: Killed by fire. Recolonizes from seed from unburned areas and from seeds released from the cones by fire.

Sowing time: fall

Transplant time: spring

Stratification: cold moist

Seed harvest: difficult

Seed cleaning: medium difficulty

Planting duration: long

Seed size: large

Herbaria: Specimen data and digital resources from The Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria

Keywords: native perennial upland tree

Propagation:
3 protocols in the Native Plant Network
University of Kentucky
Glacier National Park, Montana
Forest Service J. Herbert Stone Nursery, Oregon

Other Propagation Information:
30-56 days cold moist stratification at 0.5 to 5^oC (Krugman & Jenkinson undated).
Reproduces sexually by seed.

References:
Davis, Ray J. 1952. Flora of Idaho. Wm. C. Brown, Dubuque, Iowa. 827 pp.

Flora of North America Editorial Committee (eds.). 1993+. Flora of North America North of Mexico. 7+ vols. New York and Oxford. Oxford University Press. Online at http://www.fna.org/FNA/

Krugman, Stanley L., and James L. Jenkinson. undated. Pinus L., Pine. In: Bonner, Franklin T., and Rebecca G. Nisley (eds.). Woody Plant Seed Manual. USDA Forest Service. Available online at http://www.nsl.fs.fed.us/wpsm/

Kufeld, Roland. 1973. Foods Eaten by the Rocky Mountain Elk. Journal of Range Management 26:106-113.

Lotan, James E., and William B. Critchfield. 1990. Pinus contorta, Dougl. ex. Loud., Lodgepole Pine. In: Burns, Russell M., and Barbara H. Honkala (tech. coords.). 1990. Silvics of North America: Vol 1, Conifers. Agriculture Handbook 654. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Washington, DC.

Piper, C.V., and R.K. Beattie. 1914. The Flora of Southeastern Washington and Adjacent Idaho. Press of the New Era Printing Company, Lancaster, PA. 296 pp.

Pocewicz, Amy. 2005. Host Plants of Palouse Butterfly Species. 2 page handout to accompany the April 2005 presentation to the Palouse Prairie Foundation.

USDA NRCS. 2009. The PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov, 29 December 2009). National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70874-4490 USA.