Ponderosa pine
A tall western pine whose sun-warmed bark smells like butterscotch and vanilla, and which drops its low branches so ground fire can pass safely beneath it.
Ponderosa pine at a glance
Pinus ponderosa pon-duh-ROH-suh pine; Pinus ponderosa is PY-nus pon-duh-ROH-suh
- Type
- Plant · tree
- Diet
- Producer
- Size
- A big tree, up to about 200 feet, with an orange-plated trunk several arm-spans around in old age.
- Lifespan
- Often 300 to 600 years, and some pass 700.
- Conservation
- Not formally assessed as threatened by IUCN; common across the western mountains
A green tree that makes its own food from sunlight in long needles bundled in threes, growing in dry, sunny forests where it can take the heat and the fire.
Is it safe to touch?
Safe and fun. Press your nose into a crack in the orange bark of a big trunk on a warm day and smell for butterscotch or vanilla. The needles are long and can poke, so handle a fallen bundle gently.
There is a game to play with a big pine in the dry forests around Crater Lake, and it works best on a hot afternoon. Walk up to an old ponderosa, the kind with a broad trunk broken into orange plates like puzzle pieces, push your nose right into a crack in the warm bark, and breathe in. Most people grin. The smell is sweet and unmistakable, butterscotch to some noses and vanilla to others, rising out of the sun-heated bark of a tree that is otherwise all height and silence.
The bark is doing more than smelling good. A ponderosa is a tree built to live with fire, and it prepares for it its whole life. As it grows tall it sheds its lowest branches, leaving a long clear trunk with no ladder of twigs a flame could climb. It wraps that trunk in bark inches thick and flaky, which chars and flakes away without letting the heat reach the living wood. When a low fire runs along the ground through a ponderosa forest, clearing brush and needles, it passes right under the high green crowns and moves on, and the big trees stand through it. Push aside the char at the base of an old one and you can often find the trunk sound underneath.
Look up and the tree keeps its distance, needles gathered in threes far overhead, cones ripening in the light. Look down and the ground is open and sunny between the trunks, kept that way by fires the bark below has already outlasted more than once.
Did you know?
- The bark of an old ponderosa smells like butterscotch or vanilla when it is warm in the sun, so people press their noses right into the cracks to catch it.
- It survives wildfire on purpose. It drops its lowest branches as it grows and wears thick, flaky bark, so a fire moving along the ground passes underneath without reaching the crown.
- Its needles grow in bundles of three and are long enough to make a whistle, and its bark breaks into puzzle-piece plates of orange and cinnamon.
Common questions
Does ponderosa bark really smell like butterscotch?
Yes. On a warm, sunny day the bark of an older ponderosa gives off a sweet smell like butterscotch or vanilla. Press your nose into a crack in the orange bark and breathe in.
How does a ponderosa survive forest fires?
It comes prepared. It sheds its lowest branches and grows thick, flaky bark, so a fire creeping along the ground passes below the living crown and the tree lives on.
How can I recognize a ponderosa pine?
Look for long needles in bundles of three, and for an older trunk with bark that breaks into orange, puzzle-piece plates. Then smell the bark for butterscotch.