Pinus cembroides
Pinus glabra
Mexican pinyon, pino piñonero, piñón
bottom white pine, cedar pine, spruce pine, Walter pine
red-brown to dark brown, shallowly and irregularly furrowed, ridges broad, scaly.
gray, fissured and cross-checked into elongate, irregular, scaly plates, resin pockets absent, on upper sections of trunk ± smooth, gray, looking slick.
spreading-ascending;
twigs red-brown, sometimes finely papillate, aging gray to gray-brown.
whorled, spreading to ascending;
twigs slender, purple-red to red-brown, occasionally glaucous, aging gray, smooth.
ovoid to short cylindric, pale red-brown, 0.5–1.2cm, slightly resinous.
ovoid to ovoid-cylindric, red-brown, ca. 0.5–1cm, slightly resinous;
scale margins finely fringed.
(2–)3(–4) per fascicle, spreading to upcurved, persisting 3–4 years, 2–6cm × 0.6–0.9(–1)mm, connivent, 2–3-sided, blue- to gray-green, abaxial surface not conspicuously whitened with stomatal bands or if stomatal bands present, these less conspicuous than on adaxial surfaces, often with 2 subepidermal resin bands evident, adaxial surfaces conspicuously whitened with stomatal lines, margins entire to finely serrulate, apex narrowly conic or subulate;
sheath 0.5–0.7cm, scales soon recurved, forming rosette, shed early.
2 per fascicle, spreading to ascending, persisting 2–3 years, 4–8(–10)cm × 0.7–1.2mm, straight, slightly twisted, dark green, all surfaces with fine stomatal lines, margins finely serrulate, apex sharply conic;
sheath 0.5–1cm, base persistent.
ellipsoid, to 10mm, yellow.
lance-cylindric, 10–15mm, purple-brown.
cones maturing in 2 years, shedding seeds and falling soon thereafter, spreading, symmetric, ovoid before opening, broadly depressed-ovoid to nearly globose when open, 1–3.5cm, pale yellow- to pale red-brown, resinous, nearly sessile or short-stalked;
apophyses thickened, slightly domed, angulate, transversely keeled;
umbo subcentral, slightly raised to depressed, truncate or umbilicate.
cones maturing in 2 years, shedding seeds soon thereafter, semipersistent, spreading to recurved, nearly symmetric, lance-ovoid before opening, ovoid-cylindric when open, 3.5–7cm, red-brown, aging gray, nearly sessile or on stalks to 1cm, scales lacking contrasting border on adaxial surfaces (as in P. echinata);
apophyses but slightly thickened and raised;
umbo central, depressed, unarmed or with small, curved, weak, deciduous, short-incurved prickle.
=24.
=24.
Pinus cembroides
Pinus glabra
Pinus cembroides is the common pinyon of Mexican commerce. Populations of the Edwards Plateau, Texas, are disjunct about 150km east and north of the main area of distribution of the species, and they have been described as a distinct variety, P. cembroides var. remota Little, on the basis of thin seed shell and a higher frequency of 2-leaved fascicles in contrast to the thicker seed shell and prevalently 3-leaved fascicles in Mexican pinyon populations to the west and south. The strong overlap in nearly all character states between the populations of the Edwards Plateau and other populations makes var. remota difficult to maintain.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Pinus glabra is more shade tolerant than most yellow pines. Although the trees grow large, the wood is not much valued. The species is similar in tree form to P. strobus. It resembles P. echinata in shoot and leaf but has less prickly cones and deeper green leaves.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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