Pinus coulteri

Coulter pine , a 3-needle pine, is a member of the pine or Pinaceae family and is a native of the coastal mountains of Southern California and northern Baja California, Mexico. It can grow up to 20 m tall.

It tends to grow in drier areas than Ponderosa pine (P. pondesrosa) and Jeffrey pine (P. jeffreyi). Wood is soft and weak, so is not used for construction purposes.

• Needles are stiff and straight, in bundles of 3, 15–30 cm long, blue-green colour, crowded near the ends of branches; sheath is persistent. Branches are in yearly whorls.
• Species is monoecious; male pollen cones are yellow in tight clusters; female cones are dark red-brown, maturing in 2 years.
• Seed cones are 20–40 cm long, near-sessile (only slight stems), scales are yellow-brown, thick, twisting up and quite sharp. Cones are the heaviest cones of any pine tree, weighing up to 2.5 kg. Large, winged seeds are released maturity but cones remain on the tree for years.
• Twigs are stout, rough; buds are brown, up to 15 cm long; bark is dark gray to black when mature, deeply furrowed with scaly ridges.