In looking up the etymology behind Pinus ponderosa--having mistakenly reached a pretty silly theory I'll mention in a minute--I was very surprised to read something I'll paste from Bartleby here:

ponderous

SYLLABICATION: pon·der·ous
PRONUNCIATION: pndr-s
ADJECTIVE: 1. Having great weight. 2. Unwieldy from weight or bulk. 3. Lacking grace or fluency; labored and dull: a ponderous speech. See synonyms at heavy.
ETYMOLOGY: Middle English, from Old French pondereux, from Latin pondersus, from pondus, ponder-, weight. See (s)pen- in Appendix I.
OTHER FORMS: ponder·ous·ly —ADVERB
ponder·ous·ness, ponder·osi·ty (-s-t) —NOUN


...The "lacking fluency" definition (the 3rd) caught me by surprise and I wonder whether anyone else here would have been similarly caught by surprise. If I had read, "So-and-so's ponderous speech caught Wordwind by surprise," I would have thought that that speech had been weighty, well and deeply thought out. Now I've learned that ponderous speech, in fact, lacks fluency and grace and is dull!

My theory about the ponderosa pine that proved to be completely inaccurate, by the way: I looked at the pine cones carefully and could see a rose shape at the base of the pine cone, so I wondered whether ponderosa could mean "hanging rose." Wrong. Learned, instead, that the ponderosa pine is simply a heavy pine, some of which have lived to be 600 years old. Amazing.

Best regards,
WildWood