The Coulter pine or big-cone pine (Pinus coulteri) is a native of the coastal mountains of southern California and northern Baja California (Mexico). Isolated groves are found as far north as the San Francisco Bay Area in Mt. Diablo State Park and Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve. The species is named after Thomas Coulter, an Irish botanist and physician.
It is a substantial coniferous evergreen tree in the genus Pinus. The size ranges from 10-24 m (30-80 ft) tall, and a trunk diameter up to 1 m (3 ft). The trunk is vertical and branches horizontal to upcurved. The leaves are needle-like, in bundles of three, glaucous gray-green, 15-30 cm (6-12 in) long and stout, 2 mm (0.01 in) thick. The outstanding characteristic of this tree is the large, spiny cones which are 20-40 cm (8-16 in) long, and weigh 2-5 kg (4-10 lbs) when fresh. Coulter pines produce the largest cones of any pine tree species (people are actually advised to wear hardhats when working in Coulter pine groves), although the slender cones of the sugar pine are longer. The large size of the cones has earned them the nickname "widowmakers" among locals. The wood is weak and soft, so that the species is little used other than for firewood. It is also planted as an ornamental tree in parks and large gardens, and has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
Famous quotes containing the words coulter and/or pine:
“For in the word death
There is nothing to grasp; nothing to catch or claim;
Nothing to adapt the skill of the heart to, skill
In surviving, for death it cannot survive,
Only resign the irrecoverable keys.
The wave falters and drowns. The coulter of joy
Breaks. The harrow of death
Depends. And there are thrown up waves.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“When the chopper would praise a pine, he will commonly tell you that the one he cut was so big that a yoke of oxen stood on its stump; as if that were what the pine had grown for, to become the footstool of oxen.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)