Why do ponderosa pine trees smell like vanilla? The aroma may arise from a chemical in the sap being warmed by the sun. (The Jeffrey pine, a close relative of the Ponderosa, is also known to turn yellow and give off a similar smell.)
What does a ponderosa pine tree smell like?
Stick your nose into the bark of a tall, old ponderosa pine, and you’ll get a distinctive whiff of vanilla or butterscotch. Or maybe a nose full of sap. The smell and the sap represent just the tip of the iceberg of ecological relationships at work in a ponderosa pine forest.
How can you tell if a ponderosa tree is real?
Stick your nose into a crevice of the bark and take a big sniff. It may smell like butterscotch or vanilla. The next person who smells it may insist it's more like cinnamon, or even coconut. Scientists don't know why a closely sniffed Ponderosa smells like baking cookies.
What happens to ponderosa pine trees in a fire?
Ponderosa Pine. While small ponderosas may succumb to a hot fire, only the most horrendous crown-fires or firestorms will kill the bigger trees. Even if all the needles are burned off the tree, it will still survive. Its thick bark acts like an armor, protecting the life force of the tree known as the phloem layer.
How old do ponderosa pine trees have to be to turn yellow?
When the tree reaches 110 to 120 years old (a mere teenager for a Ponderosa pine), it begins to shed its black bark and reveal an inner bark of yellow. That's why locals call them "Yellowbellies."
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Do ponderosa pines smell like vanilla?
Ponderosa Pines are easily recognized by their tall, straight, thick trunks, clad in scaled, rusty-orange bark that has split into big plates. One can easily identify some trees by smelling their bark. Ponderosa Pine bark smells like vanilla or butterscotch.
What kind of pine tree smells like vanilla?
Both the ponderosa pine and its higher elevation cousin, the jeffrey pine, have a unique scent that is often described as butterscotch or vanilla. By sticking your nose close to their puzzle piece bark you can get a whiff of this scent yourself.
Which pines are most fragrant?
The Balsam fir is the most fragrant of the trees, making it the most popular Christmas tree variety. They're durable and have short, flat, dark green needles.
Do Jeffrey pines smell like vanilla?
The bark is constructed in flakes shaped like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle which, unlike ponderosa pine, smell like vanilla when freshly broken off.
Why does it smell like vanilla outside?
The Ponderosa pine (on Mount Lemmon*) is one of the few trees you can identify this way. When the tree is young the bark is black, but when it reaches 100-120 years old it sheds the black and shows a yellow bark that smells like vanilla or butterscotch or baking cookies, depending your point of view.
Is ponderosa pine edible?
The inner bark can be eaten raw or cooked and it is best harvested in the spring. It is more often dried, ground into a powder and either used as a thickener in soups or is mixed with flour for making bread etc.
Why do pine trees smell so good?
That fresh pine scent comes mostly from chemical compounds called terpenes. These terpenes are plentiful in conifer resin and these include alpha pinene and beta-pinene, alongside limonene and bornyl acetate which all contribute to the smell of pine, spruce or fir trees.
Is pine smell good for you?
Pine trees, smelly trees well-beloved for their scent, produce pinene, a terpene shown to have anti-inflammatory effects. The peppery, minty scent of phellandrene and eucalyptol, both emitted by eucalyptus trees, are antidepressive as well as effective cough suppressants.
What kind of pine tree smells like citrus?
Concolor Fir It has a citrus or orange scent. They tend to have a medium to wide bottom and are more full throughout. This is one of the longest-needled firs and is often mistaken for a pine. They're very popular in California.
What's the difference between a Jeffrey pine and a ponderosa pine?
Compared to its bigger cousin, the ponderosa, the Jeffrey's bark is darker and more narrowly furrowed (grooved) and is, of course, renowned for its vanilla scent. The needles are thicker and duller than the ponderosa, and its cones larger and heavier with inward facing scale tips.
What tree smells like cinnamon?
Sassafras: Cinnamon Wood, Ague Tree, Smelling Stick.
What does sugar pine smell like?
Odor: While not nearly as pronounced as many species of Southern Yellow Pine, Sugar Pine has a faint, sweet odor while being worked.
Does pine smell sweet?
Especially at this time of year, many say they enjoy the smell of a pine, spruce, or fir tree. Whether it's a holiday tree in your home, or a grove of conifers in the forest, these trees smell sharp, sweet, and refreshing.
What does Thuja plicata smell like?
It smells a bit like how you'd think Chypre should smell; but is also with resinous-sweet ambery undertone to it.
What's the difference between a Jeffrey pine and a ponderosa pine?
Compared to its bigger cousin, the ponderosa, the Jeffrey's bark is darker and more narrowly furrowed (grooved) and is, of course, renowned for its vanilla scent. The needles are thicker and duller than the ponderosa, and its cones larger and heavier with inward facing scale tips.
What does white pine smell like?
White Pine It has very little aroma. This is mainly grown as a timber tree because it is the largest pine in the U.S., but is popular in the mid-Atlantic states for a Christmas tree. It retains its needles through the holiday season.
A Sappy Solution to Bark Beetles?
Other studies show that ponderosa pines killed by bark beetles had fewer and smaller resin ducts than trees that survived bark beetles.
Flying Squirrels and Moisturizing Mushrooms
Large stands of ponderosa pine are also part of a mutually dependent relationship involving Abert’s squirrels and mushrooms.
Goshawks
Northern goshawks are a top predator of the forest. Stealthy hunters, goshawks rely on a healthy prey base, which includes grouse, squirrels, rabbits, crows and other birds. They hunt and train their young along forest edges, streamside areas and shrub habitat.
Carbon Storage
A tree has the ability to provide an essential of life for all living things: oxygen. Trees also have the power to store carbon dioxide, making the air we breathe healthier. Through photosynthesis, a pine tree’s needles pull in carbon dioxide and water, and use the energy of the sun to convert this into food for the tree.
A Web of Mysteries
Arizona’s ponderosa pine forests are home to a complex web of creatures and interactions. But due to almost a century of fire suppression, these forests have become overgrown, unhealthy and susceptible to catastrophic fire that can kill even the tallest ponderosa pines, and the species that make up the forest’s ecology.
What does ponderosa pine smell like?
Ponderosa Pine bark smells like vanilla or butterscotch. The 4-8 inch long evergreen needles, thick and flexible, three to a bundle, droop gracefully from their branches. Large trees live for 500 or more years. For the first 150 or so years, young ponderosas have nearly black bark.
What is the purpose of ponderosa pine?
The Ponderosa Pine is the major species used for dendrochronology, or tree-ring dating, to study historic climate patterns by reading the width of tree rings. In wet years, trees grow wide rings. In dry years, the rings are narrow.
Why are fires important for ponderosas?
Fires are essential for ponderosas because they help keep the more shade-tolerant tree species from invading Ponderosa Pine's preferred habitat. While small ponderosas may succumb to a hot fire, only the most horrendous crown-fires or firestorms will kill the bigger trees.
How high do ponderosa seeds float?
Mottled purple winged seeds are dispersed from the parent tree by the wind and may float as high as 1,000 ft before falling to the ground. Although small, the seeds are readily consumed by small rodents and birds. lee dittmann.
How tall is a ponderosa pine tree?
Ponderosa Pine. Pinus ponderosa is one of the Southwest's tallest trees in many parts of its range, growing to incredible heights of over 200 feet, with huge trunks 3-4 feet across. Named for its ponderous (heavy) wood, this pine is the major lumber tree in the Southwest.
Where do ponderosa pines grow?
These woody behemoths grow on dry mountain slopes and mesas. They occur in green, park-like stands on dry, well-drained, and exposed southerly slopes or plateaus. Ponderosa Pines are easily recognized by their tall, straight, thick trunks, clad in scaled, rusty-orange bark that has split into big plates.
Is Pinus Ponderosa a flowering plant?
Flowering Season: N/A not a flowering plant. Range: Numerous mountain ranges in the western U.S. lee dittmann. General Description: Pinus ponderosa is one of the Southwest's tallest trees in many parts of its range, growing to incredible heights of over 200 feet, with huge trunks 3-4 feet across. Named for its ponderous (heavy) ...
What does ponderosa bark smell like?
On warm days, a smell that has been likened to vanilla or butterscotch exudes from the cracks between slabs of bark on the tree, creating a unique type of Rocky Mountain aromatherapy.
What determines the shade of a ponderosa pine tree?
There are almost certainly a great number of factors that determine the shade of the bark of a ponderosa pine, just as there are many things that determine the complexion of a person. Genetics, habitat, age; all play a part in creating a uniquely individual tree.
What is the difference between ponderosa and bull pine?
The bark of a ponderosa also changes considerably as the tree ages, losing its deep furrows and becoming more smooth and flaky. The color of the bark changes so dramatically that young trees and old trees are known colloquially by entirely different names, and were originally considered to be distinct species. The younger trees, with their deeply furrowed, dark bark are known as blackjacks or bull pines, while the older trees are called western yellow or western red pine, or ponderosa.
What is the bark of a ponderosa tree called?
The younger trees, with their deeply furrowed, dark bark are known as blackjacks or bull pines, while the older trees are called western yellow or western red pine, or ponderosa. If you are out enjoying a hike on a glorious early spring day, and admiring the bark of ponderosa pines, you might begin to notice an interesting pattern.
Why is the bark of a ponderosa pine different color?
The change in the bark color of a ponderosa pine can be due in part to bleaching from the sun, which would explain why only the older trees are this color, and those only on one side. The report also pointed out that the bark varies in hue from place to place, sometimes a lighter grayish-yellow, and sometimes a more vibrant yellow-orange. There are almost certainly a great number of factors that determine the shade of the bark of a ponderosa pine, just as there are many things that determine the complexion of a person. Genetics, habitat, age; all play a part in creating a uniquely individual tree. It seems that trees, like most things in nature, are more complex than most people give them credit for, right down to their bark.
What is the color of ponderosa pine?
And, although the bark of this particular tree is a very mundane shade of dark blackish-brown when young, as the tree ages, the bark becomes a shade of orange reminiscent of a Caribbean sunset, a somewhat extraordinary color to encounter in the Rocky Mountains.
How old is a ponderosa pine tree?
The ponderosa pine reaches maturity at about 150 years old, and through its possible lifespan of 700 years or more, changes much in appearance. Younger ponderosas have a more typical “piney” shape, with pointed tops and live crowns that extend farther down the trunk. As the tree grows older, the crown becomes less pointy and flattens out on top, and the trunk self-prunes lower branches, making the Ponderosa more fire-resistant.
