Cones and foliage, Sedona, Arizona [C.J. Earle].
Common Names
Piñon (2); New Mexican, Colorado, mesa, two-leaved, or common piñon (or pinyon) pine (3); pinón (5).Taxonomic notes
Subsection Cembroides (4). Syn: P. monophylla var. edulis (1), Caryopitys edulis (Engelmann) Small, P. cembroides Zuccarini var. edulis (Engelmann) Voss (5).Pinus edulis var. fallax Little ( P.californiarum subsp. fallax (Little) D.K.Bailey) appears to combine features of P. edulis and P. monophylla . More study is needed (5).
Description
Shrubs or trees typically to 21 m tall and 60 cm dbh, strongly tapering, erect; crown conic, rounded, dense. Bark red-brown, shallowly and irregularly furrowed, ridges scaly, rounded. Branches persistent to near trunk base; twigs pale red-brown to tan, rarely glaucous, aging gray-brown to gray, glabrous to papillose-puberulent. Buds ovoid to ellipsoid, red-brown, 0.5-1 cm, resinous. Leaves (1-)2(-3) per fascicle, upcurved, persisting 4-6 years, 20-40 × (0.9-)1-1.5 mm, connivent, 2-sided (1-leaved fascicles with leaves 2-grooved, 3-leaved fascicles with leaves 3-sided), blue-green, all surfaces marked with pale stomatal bands, particularly the adaxial, margins entire or finely serrulate, apex narrowly acute to subulate; sheath 0.5-0.7 cm, scales soon recurved, forming rosette, shed early. Pollen cones ellipsoid, ca. 7 mm, yellowish to red-brown. Seed cones maturing in 2 years, shedding seeds and falling soon thereafter, spreading, symmetric, ovoid before opening, depressed-ovoid to nearly globose when open, ca. (3.5)4(-5) cm, pale yellow- to pale red-brown, resinous, nearly sessile to short-stalked; apophyses thickened, raised, angulate; umbo subcentral, slightly raised or depressed, truncate or umbilicate. As with other piñons, the seeds rest in a deep cone-scale declivity and upper cone scale tissue holds the seeds in place, so seeds do not readily fall out and are readily available to avian dispersers. Seeds mostly ellipsoid to obovoid; body 10-15 mm, brown, wingless. 2 n =24 (5, 9).Range
USA: California, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas at 1200 to 2450 m and Mexico: Chihuahua at 1500-2100(2700) m. Found on dry mountain slopes, mesas, plateaus, and (of course) in piñon-juniper woodland (5). See also (10).Big Tree
Diameter 172 cm, height 21 m, crown spread 16 m. Locality: Cuba, New Mexico (7).Oldest
A ring count of 973 years from sample SUNB2522, collected in NE Utah by Schulman in 1956 (8).Dendrochronology
Ethnobotany
The seeds of this, the commonest southwestern United States piñon, are much eaten and traded by Native Americans (5).Observations
Easily found in most of its range, e.g., Big Bend National Park (Texas).Remarks
Piñon ( Pinus edulis ) is the state tree of New Mexico (5).Citations
(1) Silba 1986 .(2) Elmore & Janish 1976 .
(3) Peattie 1950 .
(4) Perry 1991 .
(5) Kral in Flora of North America online .
(7) American Forests 1996 .
(8) Brown 1996 .
(9) Ronald M. Lanner, e-mail communication, 20-Dec-1999.
(10) Robert S. Thompson, Katherine H. Anderson and Patrick J. Bartlein. 1999. Atlas of Relations Between Climatic Parameters and Distributions of Important Trees and Shrubs in North America. U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1650 A&B. URL= http://greenwood.cr.usgs.gov/pub/ppapers/p1650-a/pages/conifers.html , accessed 22-Jan-2000.
See also:
[ Pinus ] [ Pinaceae ] [ home ]
This page is from the Gymnosperm Database
URL: http://www.geocities.com/~earlecj/pi/pin/edulis.htm
Edited by Christopher J. Earle
E-mail:
earlecj@conifers.org
Last modified on 28-Jan-2000