New Zealand Journal of Forestry (2015) 60(3): 44
©New Zealand Institute of Forestry

Letter to the Editor
Pinus ponderosa - a scopulorum myth

Rowland Burdon <sup>1

1</sup> Emeritus Scientist, Genetics, Scion (NZ Forest Research Institute Ltd)

John Groome in his Letter to the Editor in the August issue (NZJF, 60(2)) has made a valid point in noting how politics intruded upon proper seed-sourcing practice with Pinus ponderosa during New Zealand’s first planting boom. The practice of ‘buying within the British Empire’ evidently led to obtaining the large majority of the P. ponderosa seed from British Columbia. However, he is wrong in stating that this material represented var. scopulorum. It actually represented what is called the North Plateau race of the species within what has long been classified as var. ponderosa, that race being distributed through British Columbia, Idaho, western Montana, and Washington and Oregon east of the crest of the Cascades. The var. scopulorum, which is basically from the Rocky Mountains and is extremely slow growing here, was fortunately only a small minority of the P. ponderosa planted in New Zealand.
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