Single Record
Participant Info
- Species
- Pinus ponderosa [Pinus scopulorum] [Pinus brachyptera]
- Family
- Pinaceae
- CommonName
- ponderosa
- Presence
- Yes
- Status
- native
- EarliestDate
- 1935
- LatestDate
- 2025
- Ecosystem
- subalpine
- Geobotanical
- SSawatch, Garitas, SSanjuans, Culebras, NCristos
- Counties
- Alamosa, Conejos, Costilla, Hinsdale, Mineral, Rio Grande, Saguache
- Passes
- Cochetopa
- WildlifePreserves
- Big Meadows Reservoir, Coller, Great Sand Dunes, Rio Grande
- Other Localities
- La Botica
- Comments
- First tree of choice with late 19th and early 20th century logging operations, ponderosa pine is still a dominant tree in the foothills, occasionally ranging higher, even making it up to the old Cochetopa Pass. Traditionally, the Pinus ponderosa of the Watershed is subsp. scopulorum. In the USA, ponderosa is present in all mountain ranges west of the Great Plains. It follows the Rio Grande drainage all the way to the Big Bend country of Texas. Note that currently iNaturalist, following POWO, is renaming all P. ponderosa in the Watershed "Pinus scopulorum" (December, 2025). This is based on recent molecular analysis (for a good synopsis see Earle, 2025). Since it is also based on hundreds of unanalyzd specimens from the Watershed, I will leave the determination Pinus ponderosa (sensu lato).
- Annotation