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knobcone pine

Habit Shrubs or trees to 24m; trunk to 0.8m diam., usually straight; crown mostly narrowly to broadly conic.
Bark

purple-brown to dark brown, shallowly and narrowly fissured, with irregular, flat, loose-scaly plates, on upper sections of trunk nearly smooth.

Branches

ascending;

twigs slender, red-brown.

Buds

ovoid to ovoid-cylindric, dark red-brown, aging darker, ca. 1.5cm, resinous;

scale margins fringed, apex attenuate.

Leaves

3 per fascicle, spreading or ascending, persisting 4–5 years, (8–)9–15(–20)cm × (1–)1.3–1.8mm, straight or slightly curved, twisted, yellow-green, all surfaces with fine stomatal lines, margins serrulate, apex abruptly conic-subulate;

sheath (1–)1.5–2cm, base persistent.

Pollen cones

ellipsoid-cylindric, 10–15mm, orange-brown.

Seed(s)

cones maturing in 2 years, serotinous, long-persistent, remaining closed for 20 years or more, or opening on burning, in whorls, hard and heavy, very asymmetric, lanceoloid before opening, ovoid-cylindric when open, 8–15cm, yellow- or pale red-brown, stalks to 1cm;

apophyses toward outside base increasingly elongate, mammillate or raised-angled-conic, downcurved near base, scarcely raised on branchlet side, rhombic;

umbo central, low-pyramidal, sharp, upcurved.

2n

=24.

Pinus attenuata

Habitat Fire successional on dry slopes and foothills of Sierra Nevada and the Cascade and Coast ranges
Elevation 300–1200m (1000–3900ft)
Distribution
from FNA
CA; OR; Mexico in Baja California
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Pinus attenuata, mostly a chaparral species, bears cones at an early age. Its seed crops are heavy, and a hot fire permits the seeds to be released. It forms hybrids with P. muricata and P. radiata.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Source FNA vol. 2.
Parent taxa Pinaceae > Pinus
Sibling taxa
P. albicaulis, P. aristata, P. balfouriana, P. banksiana, P. cembroides, P. clausa, P. contorta, P. coulteri, P. echinata, P. edulis, P. elliottii, P. engelmannii, P. flexilis, P. glabra, P. jeffreyi, P. lambertiana, P. leiophylla, P. longaeva, P. monophylla, P. monticola, P. muricata, P. palustris, P. ponderosa, P. pungens, P. quadrifolia, P. radiata, P. resinosa, P. rigida, P. sabiniana, P. serotina, P. strobiformis, P. strobus, P. sylvestris, P. taeda, P. torreyana, P. virginiana, P. washoensis
Synonyms P. tuberculata
Name authority Lemmon: Mining Sci. Press 64: 45. (1892)
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