Pinus balfouriana
Pinus edulis
foxtail pine
Colorado pinyon, pinyon, piñon pine, piñón, two needle pinyon pine, two-needle pinyon
gray to salmon or cinnamon, platy or irregularly deep-fissured or with irregular blocky plates.
red-brown, shallowly and irregularly furrowed, ridges scaly, rounded.
contorted, ascending to descending;
twigs red-brown, aging gray to drab yellow-gray, glabrous or puberulent, young branches resembling long bottlebrushes because of persistent leaves.
persistent to near trunk base;
twigs pale red-brown to tan, rarely glaucous, aging gray-brown to gray, glabrous to papillose-puberulent.
ovoid-acuminate, red-brown, 0.8–1cm, resinous.
ovoid to ellipsoid, red-brown, 0.5–1cm, resinous.
5 per fascicle, upcurved, persisting 10–30 years, 1.5–4cm × 1–1.4mm, mostly connivent, deep blue- to deep yellow-green, abaxial surface without median groove but usually with 2 subepidermal but evident resin bands, adaxial surfaces conspicuously whitened by stomates, margins mostly entire to blunt, apex broadly acute to acuminate;
sheath 0.5–1cm, soon forming rosette, shed early.
(1–)2(–3) per fascicle, upcurved, persisting 4–6 years, 2–4cm × (0.9–)1–1.5mm, 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 0.5–0.7cm, scales soon recurved, forming rosette, shed early.
ellipsoid, ca. 6–10mm, red.
ellipsoid, ca. 7mm, yellowish to red-brown.
cones maturing in 2 years, shedding seeds and falling soon thereafter, spreading, symmetric, lance-cylindric with conic base before opening, broadly lance-ovoid or ovoid to cylindric or ovoid-cylindric when open, 6–9(–11)cm, purple, aging red-brown, nearly sessile;
apophyses much thickened, rounded, larger toward cone base;
umbo central, usually depressed;
prickle absent or weak, to 1mm, resin exudates amber.
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.
=24.
=24.
Pinus balfouriana
Pinus edulis
Pinus balfouriana is the true "foxtail pine." In leaf character it is hardly, if at all, distinguishable from P. longaeva, but its strongly conic-based cones with distinctly shorter-prickled, sunken-centered umbos at once distinguish it from that species.
Plants shown to be genetically distinct from the type (differences in chemistry, form, foliage, cone orientation, and seeds) have been called Pinus balfouriana subsp. austrina R.Mastrogiuseppe & J.Mastrogiuseppe. As in several other species or species complexes in Pinus, however, there is a problem with a character gradient involving related taxa. The evidence presented by D.K. Bailey (1970) and later by R.J. Mastrogiuseppe and J.D. Mastrogiuseppe (1980) could as well be used to indicate that P. balfouriana (with its two infraspecific taxa) and P. longaeva represent a single species of three subspecies or three varieties. The more conservative view of Bailey is followed here.
Of conservation concern.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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.
Seeds of Pinus edulis, the commonest southwestern United States pinyon, are much eaten and traded by Native Americans.
Pinyon (Pinus edulis) is the state tree of New Mexico.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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