Pinus lambertiana (commonly known as the sugar pine or sugar cone pine) is the tallest and most massive pine tree, and has the longest cones of any conifer. The species name lambertiana was given by the Scottish botanist David Douglas, who named the tree in honour of the English botanist, Aylmer Bourke Lambert. It is native to coastal and inland mountain areas along the Pacific coast of North America, as far north as Oregon and as far south as Baja California in Mexico.
The sugar pine is the tallest and largest Pinus species, commonly growing to tall, exceptionally to tall, with a trunk diameter of , exceptionally . The tallest recorded specimen is tall, is located in Yosemite National Park, and was discovered in 2015. The second tallest recorded was "Yosemite Giant", an tall specimen in Yosemite National Park, which died from a bark beetle attack in 2007. The tallest known living specimens today grow in southern Oregon and Yosemite National Park: one in Umpqua National Forest is tall and another in Siskiyou National Forest is tall. Yosemite National Park also has the third tallest, measured to tall as of June 2013; the Rim Fire affected this specimen, but it survived.
The bark of Pinus lambertiana ranges from brown to purple in color and is thick. The upper branches can reach out over . Like all members of the white pine group (Pinus subgenus Strobus), the leaves ("needles") grow in fascicles ("bundles") of five, with a deciduous sheath. They are long. Sugar pine is notable for having the longest cones of any conifer, mostly long, exceptionally to long (although the cones of the Coulter pine are more massive); their unripe weight of makes them perilous projectiles when chewed off by squirrels. The seeds are long, with a long wing that aids their dispersal by wind. Sugar pine never grows in pure stands, always in a mixed forest and is shade tolerant in youth.
The sugar pine occurs in the mountains of Oregon and California in the Western United States, and Baja California in northwestern Mexico; specifically the Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada, Coast Ranges, and Sierra San Pedro Martir.