Pinus balfouriana
Pinus elliottii
foxtail pine
slash pine
gray to salmon or cinnamon, platy or irregularly deep-fissured or with irregular blocky plates.
orange- to purple-brown, irregularly furrowed and cross-checked into large, irregularly rectangular, papery-scaly plates.
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.
spreading to ascending;
twigs stout (to ca. 1cm thick), orange-brown, aging darker brown, rough-scaly.
ovoid-acuminate, red-brown, 0.8–1cm, resinous.
cylindric, silvery brown, 1.5–2cm;
scale margins fringed.
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.
2 or 3 per fascicle, spreading or ascending, persisting ca. 2 years, 15–20(–23)cm × 1.2–1.5mm, straight, slightly twisted, pliant, yellow- to blue-green, all surfaces with stomatal lines, margins finely serrulate, apex abruptly acute to acuminate;
sheath 1–2cm, base persistent.
ellipsoid, ca. 6–10mm, red.
cylindric, 30–40mm, purplish.
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, falling the year after seed-shed, single or in pairs, symmetric, lance-ovoid before opening, ovoid or ovoid-cylindric when open, (7–)9–18(–20)cm, light chocolate brown, on stalks to 3cm;
apophyses lustrous (as if varnished), slightly raised, strongly cross-keeled;
umbo central, depressed-pyramidal, with short, stout prickle.
=24.
Pinus balfouriana
Pinus elliottii
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.)
Varieties 2 (native only in the flora).
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
1. Seedlings essentially without grass stage, buds thus scattered on the stem; leaves mostly in 3s, sometimes in 2s on same shoot; resin canals 3-5 per leaf; base of open cone ± truncate. | var. elliottii |
1. Seedlings tending toward a grass stage, buds thus crowded on contracted stems; leaves mostly in 2s, sometimes in 3s on same shoot; resin canals 3-9 per leaf; base of open cone rounded. | var. densa |
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