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A big, long-needled mountain pine with orange, plated bark on older trunks.
Ponderosa pine is native to mountains across the southern two-thirds of Utah. Its long needles, 3 to 10 inches, come in bundles of two and three. Young trees have dark bark; older trees develop large, thick plates of orange to cinnamon-red bark separated by deep furrows.
The thick bark helps it resist fire, and it tolerates drought. Cones are 3 to 6 inches long, with a short, sharp spine on each scale.
Needles in bundles of two and three, and orange plates on old trunks, are the quickest clues.
A slow-growing native pine of harsh mountain sites, with five needles in each bundle.
A native mountain conifer whose hanging cones have distinctive three-pointed bracts.
