Forager by Michelle Dowd

Author:Michelle Dowd
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 2023-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Field Note #9

Sugar Pine

The sugar pine can grow up to 200 feet tall and can live up to 500 years. It has slender deep blue-green needles with white tips, clustered in bundles of five. Its long, horizontal branches often droop at the ends from the weight of its 22-inch cones. It grows in elevations of 5,500 to 8,000 feet.

Like all pine trees, the sugar pine offers nutrition through its inner bark, needles, pollen, and seeds, but this one is known for the sweetness of its sap, which tastes like maple syrup. The seeds of a sugar pine have a nutty flavor, with a hint of resin. The nut, together with the shell, can be made into a nut butter. A sugar-like substance exudes from wounds made in the trunk of the tree and also from the cones. After this pitch dries and hardens, you can use it as chewing gum.

Mature sugar pines regrow after they’ve burned, using their extensive root system. Dormant buds are protected underground, and nutrients stored in its deep roots allow quick sprouting after a fire.

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