Learning to recognise trees by their bark. These photos were taken in Yosemite National Park. Obviously some sort of pine tree, mature cones, pine needles.
So Michael, all the pine cones that look like these, are from benthamiana? The ordinary cones that most people know as 'pine cones'? Thanks again Michael for all your ID's. I renamed the subject in order to be able to find things. Much better, don't you think! How are you on Australian trees? I am in Australia now... Don't know if I'll have time to take spottings, but there must be so many varieties of eucalyptus, the trunks of many look so different. And I was absolutely amazed by the amount of birds in the forests here. Many, many more than I have seen anywhere in my travels overseas. The forest is alive with bird song and the squarks of cockatoos and parrots, and one sees them also!
Yes! Depends on who and where 'most people' are! For northern Europeans, the 'ordinary' pine cones are from Scots Pine Pinus sylvestris; for most Chinese people, they are from Chinese Red Pine Pinus massoniana; and so on: to each, their own. But yes, for people in that part of the Sierra Nevada, then yes, Pinus ponderosa subsp. benthamiana is the common local pine, and therefore, provider of their common pine cones. Not so good, I fear! I've never been there. And the difficulty is componded by the very high species diversity in relatively few genera; Australia has over 500 species of Eucalyptus, and nearly as many species of Acacia. That compares with just 115 species of Pinus in the whole world, with only ever one to at most a few at any one location. But the UBC forums do have some very good Australians looking through regularly, so there's a good chance that someone else will identify them even if I can't.