Hop Hornbeam
Ostrya virginiana Medium tree Zones 3–9 25–40 ft
Shares rocky ground and dry uplands in the wild.
A native we do not grow
Whitebark Pine
Pinus albicaulis. Medium tree, 20 to 50 feet where planted, zones 2 to 7; full sun or part shade; dry or average ground.
We do not grow whitebark pine, and it is not in our shop. This page gathers what our tools say about it and the natives we grow for the same ground.
At a glance
| Other names | Alpine whitebark pine, creeping pine |
|---|---|
| Form | Medium tree |
| Height, feet | 20 to 50 where planted; up to 108 in its native stands |
| Spread, feet | Up to 20 |
| Zones | 2 to 7 |
| Sun | Full sun or part shade |
| Soil moisture | Dry or average ground |
| Growth | Slow |
| Leaves | Evergreen |
| Traits | Wildlife value, edible, erosion control |
| Pollen | May to August |
| Fruit | Cones, August to September |
| First crop | 20 to 30 years (large crops from 60 to 80) |
| Pollination | One bears; a second improves the crop. Each tree carries both male and female cones and the wind carries the pollen. An isolated tree may go unpollinated, and trees grown from one bird's seed cache often pollinate one another or themselves. |
| Lifespan | Usually lives 500 years or more and can live 1,275 or more, and the oldest dated one reached 1,267. Only a tiny share of trees has ever been ring-counted or cross-dated. |
| Black walnut | Not named on the Morton Arboretum's lists |
| Ground | Rocky ground and dry uplands |
| Native in | 7 states |
Whitebark pine is native in 7 states: California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming. The states are the USDA PLANTS Database's records, with the native range read from the Fire Effects Information System and Silvics of North America.
What our tools say
How fast it grows and how big it gets, by site Whether it suits your zone, sun and soil How far from a house, wires and a septic field What grows with it in the wild and in a yard When to plant it where you live When it sheds pollen and bears cones, month by month How to sow its seed, with dates for your place How many to plant for a crop of seed Whether one you have can be moved, and what the move takes How old one is, from its trunk How a big one scores against the champion trees
For the same ground, we grow
These trees we grow share the most of whitebark pine's natural communities in the wild, by the companion species tool's rules.
Common Hackberry
Celtis occidentalis Large tree Zones 2–9 40–60 ft
Shares rocky ground and dry uplands in the wild.
Read from
Its figures come from Silvics of North America, the Forest Service's Fire Effects Information System, the Woody Plant Seed Manual, the USDA PLANTS Database, the Wildflower Center, Cal Poly's SelecTree, Oregon State University's Landscape Plants, Calscape, the Jepson eFlora, the Gymnosperm Database, Rocky Mountain Tree-Ring Research and the International Tree-Ring Data Bank.