Sugar Pine Cones

Description:

Sap glistening through the seeds of a sugar pine cone.The sugar pine has the longest cones of conifer trees (up to 24 inches). The sugar pine gets its name from the crystalline encrustations of resin that form around the edges of wounds or fire scars to a living tree. Fluid exudation from a wound to the living sugar pine hardens into white nodules that Indians and settlers learned to chew like gum. The nodules are said to be sweet with a pine sugar.

Habitat:

The sugar pine occurs in the mountains of Oregon and California in the western United States, and Baja California in northwestern Mexico; specifically the Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada, Coast Ranges, and Sierra San Pedro Martir. These were in Sequoia National Forest.