Sugar pine

Botanical name

Pinus lambertiana

Type

Native evergreen conifer, five needles per bundle

Size

Up to about 250 feet reported, with trunks to about 10 feet across (USDA Forest Service)

Elevation in the Sierra

About 2,000 to 7,500 feet (USDA Forest Service)

Where it is found

Its Sierra range (2,000-7,500 ft) overlaps the Nevada shore; an arborist confirms the species

Known weak points

White pine blister rust, drought stress, bark beetles, root disease

A sugar pine gives itself away by its cones, which dangle from the tips of the highest limbs like tassels. The USDA Forest Service says the cones average about 12 inches and can reach 22. This page covers how to identify it, where it grows in our elevation bands, the diseases to watch and when pruning or removal is right.

How do you identify a sugar pine?

Count the needles: five to a bundle, two to four inches long, bluish-green with fine white lines. The cones are the surest sign. They hang from the tips of limbs, long and slender, averaging about 12 inches and reaching up to about 22. The trunk is straight and massive, with bark in thick, deeply furrowed plates, often purplish-brown, and the crown is open with long, horizontal limbs.

Old trees are the giants of the forest, standing above everything else. Seedlings and saplings are thin and sensitive to disease.

• Five needles per bundle
• Huge hanging cones
• Massive trunk with deeply furrowed, purple-brown bark
• Long, horizontal upper limbs

Where does it grow around Lake Tahoe and the Carson Range?

The Forest Service gives the Sierra Nevada range as about 2,000 to 7,500 feet. That includes the lower and middle slopes of the Nevada side of the lake: Glenbrook (6,243 feet), Zephyr Cove (6,258 feet), Stateline (6,284 feet), Incline Village (6,437 feet), Kingsbury (7,126 feet). It is a mixed-conifer tree, growing with Jeffrey pine, white fir and incense cedar.

It is not a valley-floor tree. Reno sits near 4,505 feet and Carson City near 4,680 feet, and sugar pines are not typical of the planted lots there, where the nearest NOAA stations record about 7 to 9 inches of precipitation a year.

What goes wrong with it here?

Blister rust is the best-known disease. The Forest Service calls sugar pine the most susceptible of the commercially important North American white pines, and says the fungus causes cankers that girdle the stem and that infected seedlings and young trees usually die. It is most severe in Oregon and northern California. Cankers on a trunk, orange blisters and flagging branches are what an arborist looks for.

Mature trees resist low and moderate fires because of thick bark, but high-severity fires in stressful conditions often kill them. Drought and root trouble weaken sugar pine, and weakened pines draw beetles; see bark beetles in pines. The tree's size is a hazard in itself: a dead top or large dead limb over a house can do real damage.

Pruning, cabling or removal: which is the right call?

Pruning a sugar pine means removing dead branches and, for defensible space, dead lower limbs. Anything at height, with branches this heavy, is work for a trained crew with proper equipment, not a homeowner. See dead wooding and ladder fuels.

Removal is the answer when the tree is dead, when its crown has mostly faded, when a canker has girdled the trunk or when it leans toward a structure. The size makes most removals crane-assisted removal jobs. In the Tahoe Basin, TRPA's rules apply; a dead tree that could fall on a house does not need a permit, and the agency decides. Our 14 inch rule guide has the details.

What does Battle Born Tree Service do about a sugar pine?

Call 775.232.8243 or use the estimate form on this page. An ISA Certified Arborist looks at the tree on site, explains what is wrong and tells you whether the job is pruning out dead wood or removal. Credential WE-11728A is held by one of our two certified arborists. Cones and large clean logs are not something we list; ask the office about wood.