Marie

more from Alan Coday who has just read your original email as well as my covering note:

"The term Western yellow pine can be used to refer to Pinus ponderosa in 'USA and Australia'.

However, more generally speaking (ie not specifically Western yellow....) I would still expect the term to relate to American pitch pine as typified by the P.taeda group.

It is technically possible to split the three groups that I have represented in my table (the strobus group, the ponderosa group and the taeda group) but you need top quality TLS RLS and TS thin sections for microscope viewing.  Assuming the original determination was by microscopic examination, whoever declared the sample as 'yellow pine' should have a much better idea of the pine group they were referring to. Can 'the determiner' be questioned further?"

It seems that identifying pine species is VERY DIFFICULT and needs VERY GOOD microscopic sections and VERY SKILLED people to look at them.  I don't know how important this is, but sounds to me like some sampling and laboratory inspections of microscopic sections could be in order.

If you want to pursue this further, email me directly.

david

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