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Home , Birch, Lolo National Forest, Pine

FOR MORE INFORMATION: OF THE Lolo National Seeley Lake Ranger District Supervisors Office HC-31, Box 3200 LOLO NATIONAL FOREST Building 24, Fort Missoula Seeley Lake, MT 59868 Missoula, MT 59804 Phone: (406) 677-2233 Phone: (406) 329-3750 Hours: M-F, 7:30am - 4:30pm Hours: M-F, 7:30am - 4:00pm Superior Ranger District Missoula Ranger District 209 W. Riverside Building 24A, Fort Missoula Superior, MT 59872 Missoula, MT 59804 Phone: (406) 822-4233 Phone: (406) 329-3814 Hours: M-F, 8:00am - 4:30pm Hours: M-F, 7:30am - 4:00pm Plains/Thompson Falls Ranger Ninemile Ranger District District 20325 Remount Road P.O. Box 429 Huson, MT 59846 Plains, MT 59859 Phone: (406) 626-5201 Phone: (406) 826-3821 Hours: M-F, 7:30am - 4:30pm Hours: M-F, 7:30am - 4:30pm

http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/lolo

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination in all its programs and activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, and persons with disabilities who require alternative means for communication of program information (Braille, large print, audiotape, etc.) should contact USDA’s TARGET Center at (202) 720-2600 (voice and TDD). 800 year old Ponderosa To file a complaint of discrimination, write USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, Room 326-W, Whitten Building, 14th and Independence Ave. SW, Washington, DC 20250-9410, or call 1-202-720-5964 voice or TDD. USDA is an equal employment opportunity provider and employer.” Lolo National Forest R1-05-85 About This Guide INDEX BY GROUP This guidebook covers the most common native trees found on the Lolo National Forest. Use it as a Group Name/Species Page way to begin to identify and get to know the trees around you as you hike, camp or picnic on the Birch 4 forest. If you take the time to learn to identify Water Birch 4 Cedar trees, you just may find yourself slowing down a bit Western Redcedar 5 and becoming more aware of the natural world True around you. When you get good at identifying Grand Fir 6 trees, there will still be plenty of other , Subalpine Fir 7 and to discover to keep you busy for a Hemlock lifetime. Mountain Hemlock 8 Western Hemlock 8 False Hemlock Douglas-Fir 9 Sources: Rocky Mountain Juniper 10 Text: Northwest Trees by Steve Arno. The Mountaineers, Alpine Larch 11 Seattle, 1977. Western Larch 12 Illustrations: Pine Flora of the Pacific Northwest by C.L. Hitchcock and Lodgepole Pine 13 Arthur Cronquist, University of Washington Press, Field Guide to Forest Pl Ponderosa Pine 14 Seattle; 1973. 15 by Whitebark Pine 16 Patricia Patterson, Kenneth E. Neiman; Jonalea R. of northern Limber Pine 16 Tonn. Intermountain Research Station. USDA Forest Poplar Service, GTR INT-180, Ogden, UT. 1985. 17 Black Cottonwood 18 This brochure is dedicated to the memory of Phyllis N. Woodford Engelmann Spruce 19 Pattee Canyon Volunteer Host 1990 - 2001 PAPER BIRCH - WESTERN REDCEDAR WATER BIRCH - Thuja plicata

Both are small, up to 80 feet tall, slender Large, tapering up to 160 feet trees with open tall, with fluted trunk and drooping crowns. Paper birch branches. Redcedar grows best in grows on moist, open, moist soils along streams. It is sunny uplands. Water tolerant of shade and lives up to birch grows mostly along 1,000 years of age. streams. Both attract woodpeckers and other cavity nesters.

Paper Birch Water Birch

LEAVES:

The ovate deciduous NEEDLES: are similar, but those of the Dark -, glossy and paper birch have a pointy tip. scaly with branches forming flat sprays. It has a very strong aroma. : Both birches bear cylindrical . CONES: Tiny, 1/2” oval cones. Cones sit erect and point backward on twigs. : Paper birch: Light reddish bark when young, aging to creamy BARK: white to coppery. Bark peels Gray, stringy, bark tearing off in away in thin papery strips. long strips on mature trees. Water birch: Its reddish-brown bark does not peel. Paper Birch Water Birch GRAND FIR SUBALPINE FIR Abies grandis Abies lasiocarpa

A large tree, grows up to 160 feet A distinctive tree that grows to about tall, with neatly symmetrical, 140 feet tall, with a spire-like crown densely packed branches. It has and branches that often extend to thin bark, which makes it easily the ground. Commonly found with killed by fire. spruce, subalpine fir grows in high- elevation country where it’s cold and snowy. Also thin barked and easily killed by fire.

NEEDLES: NEEDLES: Flat, dark green needles, 1 to 2 Thick needles, 1 to 2 inches inches long; tip rounded and long, with blunt and often notched. notched tips.

CONES: CONES: Cylindrical, 2- to 4-inch cones Purplish-gray, 2- to 4-inch, borne upright and high in the cylindrical cone borne upright tree crown. on branches high in the top of the crown. Cones disintegrate on the tree. BARK: Smooth and grayish bark with BARK: blisters when young, aging to ashy Thin, gray and smooth with brown with thick, deep furrows. resin blisters. Inner bark purplish. MOUNTAIN HEMLOCK Ts u g a m e r t e n s ia n a menziesii

A subalpine tree that grows up to 140 feet tall. It has a pyramid-shaped crown Tree grows up to 160 feet tall and has with slender, drooping branches and a compact, pyramid-shaped crown with slightly drooping top. It occupies the wet, upward spreading branches. Douglas snowy ranges, where soils seldom freeze. fir is highly valued as because Western Hemlock, heterophylla, is the is hard, stiff and durable. similar to the mountain hemlock, but grows on wet, low elevation sites on the Plains/Thompson Falls District.

NEEDLES: NEEDLES: Deep bluish-green, 1-inch-long Small, 1-inch-long, flattened needles that extend out on all with slight down the sides of twig. center on the top of the pointed needle. CONES: Cylindrical cones, 2 to 3 CONES: inches long, with thin scales, Downward hanging, reddish- purple turning brown when brown, 2- to 4-inch long mature. cones with three-lobed bracts protruding from thin scales. BARK: BARK: Dark red-brown bark with Rough, very thick grayish bark with cracked and grooved into narrow light-colored corky furrows streaked ridges. with reddish brown. ROCKY MOUNTAIN JUNIPER ALPINE LARCH Juniperus scopulorum Larix lyallii

A tree of the timberline, this A short, shrubby tree with a wide, loses its needles each fall. It grows up irregularly shaped crown and to 90 feet tall and has long spreading twisted trunk. Abundant on dry, limbs and a broad gnarled crown. rocky sites, often forming a Alpine larch grows above 6,000 feet in “woodland” on sites too dry for elevation in cold and snowy areas with other forest trees to survive. rocky soils. On Carlton Ridge, Missoula Ranger District, it hybridizes with western larch.

NEEDLES: Young trees are covered with NEEDLES: prickly, ½-inch, awl-like leaves. Deciduous needles, light green Mature trees have tiny scale-like in summer and golden-yellow leaves arranged opposite each in autumn before needle shed. other in pairs on the twig. Branches covered with short spur, which hold clusters or CONES: 30-40, 1- to 2-inch rigid produce “berry-like needles. cones.” The small bluish berries, with a whitish waxy coating, CONES: attract foraging birds that eat the Small, 1- to 2-inch cones with , thereby dispersing the , bracts much longer than cone which pass through their digestive scales. system. BARK: BARK: Thin, smooth and ashy gray bark The thin, reddish or gray bark shreds off in turns brown, deeply furrowed strips. The wood smells like cedar. with age. WESTERN LARCH LODGEPOLE PINE Larix occidentalis

Sun-loving tree, up to 170 feet tall, with short, open crown on long, A slim pine, up to 130 feet tall, with clear trunk. Often grows with a short crown. An adaptable tree other tree species, but will form that can grow on poor soils. It pure stands after severe fire. Larch often grows in dense thickets, called shares some of the same fire de- dog-hair stands.

fenses as ponderosa pine--thick, scaly bark and branches high off the ground. Long-lived larch trees around Seeley Lake date back 1,000 years.

NEEDLES: NEEDLES: Tiny, soft green needles that Stiff, often twisted, yellowish-green, turn golden yellow in the fall 2-inch-long needles grow in before shedding. Clustered bundles of 2. in bunches of 15-30 and borne on short spurs. CONES: Cone, 1-inch-long, attached CONES: directly onto the branch. Cones Small, 1-inch-long, oblong with sharp tips on scales and cones cone with red-brown scales can persist on branches for decades, borne on a short spur. and smany cones (serotinous) rarely open unless exposed to fire.

BARK: BARK: Thin and scaly when young, Thin, black, rectangular plated becoming thick and deeply furrowed bark. with large plates with age. PONDEROSA PINE WESTERN WHITE PINE Pinus monticola

Montana’s state tree, the straight and large-crowned ponderosa pine can grow A large tree that grows up to 170 feet tall more than 200 feet tall. Pure stands with a long, clear trunk and slender abundant at low elevations, mixes with crown. It has a wide distribution, but Douglas fir at higher elevations. Its long seldom dominants a stand. A favorite of allows it to access soil moisture early loggers, now it’s hard to find on dry sites and makes it wind-firm. because of the invasion of white pine Thick bark and branches high off the blister rust disease, which was introduced ground make it one of the most fire in 1910 through a shipment of infected resistant tree in our area. ’s from France. largest ponderosa, 194 feet tall, can be found near Alberton.

NEEDLES: NEEDLES: Long, blue-green, slender and Long, flexible, yellowish green flexible needles that grow in needles in bundles of 3. bundles of 5.

CONES: CONES: Egg-shaped, 3 to 6 inches Narrow and curved cones, 5 long, with sharp prickle on the to 15 inches long. Cones back of each scale. dangle from branch tips.

BARK: BARK: Bark blackish, rough and scaly on Gray, smooth and very thin bark with young trees, turns orange with age. resin blisters when young. Mature Mature to old trees show distinctive trees become finely checked with dark puzzle piece-like bark. gray squares. WHITEBARK PINE ASPEN tremuloides Subalpine tree, up to 80 feet, with broadly branched crown that inhabits the upper reaches of the forest. On exposed high Slender, broadleaf tree that grows elevation sites, it grows gnarled and stunted, up to 80 feet tall and forms dense called “krummholz”, meaning “crooked groves or clones, which sprout from wood” in German. Trees often growing in a single system. Some clones clumps with several stems are caused by are very large and long-lived, Clark’s Nutcrackers, birds that bury pine ranging up to 5,000 years old. seedsflexilis in the soil to be retrieved later to feed Individual aspen live for about 100 their young. Like western white pine, years and rot easily, which attracts whitebark pine communities have also been cavity-nesting birds. decimated by white pine blister rust and mountain pine . Limber Pine, Pinus , is rare west of the Continental Divide. It’s found on the Seeley Lake RD on dry and LEAVES: mostly limestone soils on Deciduous with leaves NEEDLES: the North Fork Blackfoot alternately attached to Stout and stiff, yellow green, river. 1- to 3-inch-long needles in branches. The leaves shake bundles of 5. vigorously in a light breeze. The 1- to 4-inch long is broadly ovate to almost CONES: round. Ovid, deep red to purple- brown cone, 2 to 4 inches long, which contain large, pea- FLOWERS: size nuts consumed by animals Drooping catkins appear such as nutcrackers, red squir- before leaves. rels and grizzly bears. BARK: BARK: Smooth, cream-colored bark Thin, white bark on young trees and that turns blackish and rough scaly, grayish bark when mature. with age. BLACK COTTONWOOD ENGELMANN SPRUCE Populus trichocarpa Picea engelmannii

Grows up to 190 feet tall with Large, deciduous, stream- or spire-like crown and branches lake-side tree, that grows over extending to the ground. It grows 100 feet tall, with a broad, open on deep, moist soil, often along crown. A sun-loving tree named streams. On drier and higher sites, for the wispy hairs on the mature it can be found growing with seeds that in the air like lodgepole pine. Hybrids of white cotton. spruce are common on the Seeley Lake Ranger District.

LEAVES: Alternately grown, ovate, 2- to 6-inch-long leaf that is dark-green above and NEEDLES: -white beneath. Short, pointy, blue-green, 1- to 2-inch-long needles. FLOWERS: Drooping catkins appear CONES: before leaves in early spring. Oblong, 1- to 2-inch-long cones with light - brown, paper-thin scales. BARK: Smooth yellowish tan bark on BARK: young trees, which turns darker Thin, scaly, brownish-red. and deeply grooved with age.