This mature, flat-topped Ponderosa, about four feet in diameter and 150 feet tall, sits in a deep fault in an igneous canyon.

A mature stand of four foot diameter Ponderosas in a very different setting towers over Narraguinnep Canyon Natural Area.

Dwarf Ponderosa Pines are found at 6,300-7,200 feet in the high desert areas of the Four Corners region.  In a collapsed lave dome in El Malpais National Monument and in the heat of the De-Na-Zin/Bisti Wilderness, Ponderosas are dwarfed by heat and lack of moisture and nutrients.  The Ponderosa at top left is about fifteen feet tall and the bottom one is about thirty feet tall yet they are both far more than a century old.