The Ponderosa Pine Trees are slender and straight trees that grow throughout most of the province including a few spots on Vancouver Island.
The needles occur in groups of three and are up to 20 cm long, they are usually a dark green colour. The cones vary in shape from conical to egg shape, up to 15 cm long without stalks. The bark is thin, orangey-brown to grey and finely scaled.
The Ponderosa pine is a highly adaptable tree that can grow in all sorts of environments, from wet bogs to dry bluffs. This pine is one of the best pines for log house construction, it is a fairly straight-growing tree.
Ponderosa Pine Trees can occur as the only tree in dense stands, or you may find them growing alone in mixed forests. Sometimes they can grow so thickly together that it is almost impossible to get through them.
This is not a very common tree on Vancouver Island but is quite common in the rest of the province, l have only seen it growing here a few times. These trees were photographed in the Campbell River Area.