Whitebark Pine

Whitebark Pine is a high elevation pine native to the mountains of western North America, found in subalpine and treeline zones of the Rocky Mountains, Cascades and Sierra Nevada from British Columbia and Alberta south to California and Wyoming. It grows as a gnarled, often multi stemmed tree at the harsh upper limit of tree growth, and its large, wingless seeds are dispersed almost entirely by Clark's Nutcracker, a bird that caches the seeds and thereby regenerates the species. The tree has declined severely across much of its range due to the introduced disease white pine blister rust, native bark beetle outbreaks and altered fire regimes, leading to its listing as a threatened species in parts of its range. Whitebark Pine seeds are also an important food source for grizzly bears in some ecosystems.