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California Coulter Pine

The Pinus Coulteri is commonly known as Big-cone Pine, California Coulter Pine, Coulter Pine, Nut Pine, as well as Pitch Pine

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Growing Regions

Coulter pine occurs from Contra Costa County, California, south through the Coastal, Transverse, and Peninsular ranges to the Mexican border [10,34,35,39,41,55]. It is cultivated in Hawaii [58].

     

General Information

The currently accepted scientific name of Coulter pine is Pinus coulteri D. Don [10,35]. There are no recognized subspecies or varieties. Coulter pine hybridizes with Jeffrey pine (Pinus jeffreyi) [8,10,31,35].

Coulter pine occurs in a variety of plant associations, but seldom forms
extensive pure stands [18].  Where they do occur, communities dominated
by Coulter pine intergrade with chaparral and lower montane coniferous
forest [5,24,27,47].  Coulter pine is named as a dominant species in the
following published classifications:

Terrestrial natural communities of California [22]
Vegetation types of the San Bernadino Mountains [25]
Vegetation of the San Bernadino Mountains [37]
A vegetation classification system applied to southern California [42]
Mixed evergreen forest [45]
Vascular plant communities of California [47]
Montane and subalpine forests of the Transverse and Peninsular ranges [48]
An introduction to the plant communities of the Santa Ana and San
  Jacinto Mountains [52]

Associated trees not mentioned in Distribution and Occurrence include
sugar pine (Pinus lambertiana), bristlecone fir (Abies bracteata),
incense-cedar (Libocedrus decurrens), Sargent cypress (Cupressus
sargentii), black cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa), California bay
(Umbellularia californica), bigcone Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga
macrocarpa), Pacific madrone (Arbutus menziesii), and birchleaf
mountain-mahogany (Cercocarpus betuloides var. betuloides)
[4,7,22,24,47,48,55].  Understory associates include chamise (Adenostoma
fasciculatum), Eastwood manzanita (Arctostaphylos glandulosa), Pringle
manzanita (A. pringlei), pointleaf manzanita (A.  pugens), deerbrush
(Ceanothus integerrimus), annual hairgrass (Deschampsia danthonioides),
rareflower heterocodon (Heterocodon rariflorum), golden violet (Viola
douglasii), and annual ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum) [4,19,37,48,52].

Much of the information presented here is attributed to:
Cope, Amy B. 1993. Pinus coulteri. In: Fire Effects Information System, [Online]. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laboratory (Producer). Available at USDA Forest Service.

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