# Tallest Pine Species
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Size
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The sugar pine can top 200 feet. The tree is second to the giant sequoia in its volume of wood. The diameter can reach more than 10 feet. Scottish botanist David Douglas was the first to identify the species. He noted the diameter of a specimen that he measured was 57 feet with a height of 134 feet. Even the ripe sugar pine cone is large. It can reach from 18 to 24 inches long and just 4 to 6 inches in diameter.
Distribution
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These giant trees are found only in Oregon, California and northwestern Mexico. More than 80 percent of the sugar pines grow in California in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Smaller populations thrive in the coastal range of northern California and southern Oregon. Sugar pines also grow abundantly in Oregon's Cascade Mountains. The trees grow only in the Sierra San Pedro Martir mountain range found in Baja, California, south of Ensenada, Mexico. The species thrives in elevations with cool, wet winters and warm summers and the tree can live in a variety of elevations from 1,100 feet in the Cascades of Oregon to 10,000 feet in the San Bernardino Mountains of Southern California.
Uses
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The wood has many uses, as it is soft, the boards seldom warp and the grain even. The wood has little taste or odor and is often used to create wooden boxes for storing food, such as coffee, grains and nuts, or for making boxes to transport freshly picked produce. The wood is also used for flooring, door and window frames along with piano keys and organ pipes that require wood that does not warp or bend. Crafters use the pinecones for decorating since they are so striking.
Threats
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The sugar pine tolerates living with other plant species easily, but infestations of the white pine blister rust prevents young trees from growing, eventually killing them. The parasitic plant dwarf mistletoe invades the trees and severely reduces its size, weakens it and makes it vulnerable to bark beetles. The sugar pine cone beetle can destroy the pinecones, reducing the yield by as much as 75 percent.
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