Lodgepole Pine (Pinus Contorta)

The pinus contorta is an appropriate title if only because of the confusion it causes for those trying to identify it. Even some of Yosemite's most knowledgeable explorers mistook it for a different type of tree. Yet it is the most prolific tree in the Sierra, found in many different levels of altitude. John Muir described its abudance:

"I find the two-leaved pine (Pinus contorta, var. Murrayana) forms the bulk of the forest up to an elevation of ten thousand feet or more--the highest timber-belt of the Sierra. I saw a specimen nearly five feet in diameter growing on deep, well-watered soil at an elevation of about nine thousand feet... a brave, hardy mountaineer pine, growing cheerily on rough beds of avalanche boulders and joints of rock pavements, as well as in fertile hollows, standing up to the waist in snow every winter for centuries, facing a thousand storms and blooming every year in colors as bright as those worn by the sun-drenched trees of the tropics."

The lodgepole pine grows from 130 to 160 feet on average, with needles and cones of about 1.5 to 3 inches in length. It generally grows a straight trunk and so was used by Native Americans for teepee lodges, hence the name lodgepole pine. The exception to its perfectly vertical nature occurs when the snow puts so much pressure on a weak sapling that it becomes permanently bent:

It is often mistaken for the Tamarack pine because of its two-needle fascicles. These are the only trees in the Sierra with needles in groups of two as opposed to three or four. John Muir commented on the misleading name of Tamarack Flat in Yosemite: 

"The flat is named after the two-leaved pine (Pinus contorta, var. Murrayana), common here, especially around the cool margin of the meadow. On rocky ground it is a rough, thickset tree, about forty to sixty feet high and one to three feet in diameter, bark thin and gummy, branches rather naked, tassels, leaves, and cones small. But in damp, rich soil it grows close and slender, and reaches a height at times of nearly a hundred feet. Specimens only six inches in diameter at the ground are often fifty or sixty feet in height, as slender and sharp in outline as arrows, like the true tamarack (larch) of the Eastern States; hence the name, though it is a pine." 

If only we could communicate with these pines, we could gain a breadth of knowledge into every walk of life and each varied landscape of the vast Sierra mountain range. In the Mammoth Lakes area, where we stayed, the lodgepole pine can be found residing lakeside, in a meadow, rising up between granite boulders, by a stream, and along mountain slopes. It stands as a reminder to those who take interest in identifying the life around them, that it's worth doing so just to have someone familiar greet you every place you visit.