The Spring Mountains ECHO

WHAT KIND OF PINE TREE IS THAT?

By Barbara Washington

The Spring Mountains are home to several types of evergreen trees. General categories of evergreens are pines, spruces, firs, and junipers. There are a few easy rules that enable us to quickly identify individual species. The three basic identification keys are the needles, the cones and the bark.

1) Needles can be single or in bundles up to five. A thin sheath may be found covering the base of the needles. Observe the length, shape and stiffness of the needles.

2) Next, look at the cones. The scales are either thick and woody or thin and papery. Cones are either pendant, hanging downward, or erect, standing up.

3) Last, look at the bark to determine the color and surface texture, platy, scaly or stringy.

The following guidelines apply to the evergreens that are present in the Spring Mountains and surrounding forests, and in all but three cases, identification can be made using only the needles.

A. NEEDLES:

1) Sheathed Needles: All sheathed needles are found on pine trees.

a) Single Needle - Single Leaf Pinyon Pine

b) Two Needles - Pinyon Pine

c) Three Needles - Ponderosa Pine

d) Five Needles (See cone characteristics for secondary information)

I) Length 3/4" to 1 1/2" - Bristlecone Pine

ii) Length 1" to 3" - Limber Pine

2) Unsheathed, single, sharp, stiff and square needles are found on spruce trees. Englemann spruce and blue spruce are common to this area, and are distinguished by cones and bark.

3) Unsheathed, single, soft, and flat needles are found on fir trees.

a) Length 2" or longer - White Fir

b) Length 1" - Subalpine Fir

4) Awl or scalelike needles are found on Junipers.

a) Needles in groups of three, rather prickly, standing out from the stems, awl like - Common Juniper

b) Scalelike, branching leaves (needles) - Includes Utah juniper and Rocky Mountain juniper, distinguished by size of the berries (modified cones)

B. CONES (Berries)

When observing a sheathed five-needled pine tree, if the cone scales are bristle-tipped, the tree is a bristlecone pine. (HUM, let me think. There is a connection here . . . ) Limber pine cones have the normal woody scales.

To distinguish between the two spruces, Englemann spruce has cones that are about 2 1/2" long and the blue spruce's cones are a little longer.

Utah juniper berries (modified cones) are marble sized, while Rocky Mountain juniper berries are pea-sized and dry.

C. BARK

Englemann spruce has reddish bark whereas blue spruce has gray bark.

All of these trees have several aliases. But I have tried to use the most common names. Your use of a good guide book will provide you with the resource for the scientific name and more versions of the layman's names. Learn and apply these rules. I bet you will be amazed how simple it is to identify evergreen trees not only in the Spring Mountains, but all over the Southwest.