Pinus flexilis
Pinus balfouriana
limber pine, pin blanc de l'ouest
foxtail pine
gray, nearly smooth, cross-checked in age into scaly plates and ridges.
gray to salmon or cinnamon, platy or irregularly deep-fissured or with irregular blocky plates.
spreading to ascending, often persistent to trunk base;
twigs pale red-brown, puberulous (rarely glabrous), slightly resinous, aging gray, smooth.
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.
ovoid, light red-brown, 0.9–1cm, resinous;
lower scales ciliolate along margins.
ovoid-acuminate, red-brown, 0.8–1cm, resinous.
5 per fascicle, spreading to upcurved and ascending, persisting 5–6 years, 3–7cm × 1–1.5mm, pliant, dark green, abaxial surface with less conspicuous stomatal bands than adaxial surfaces, adaxial surfaces with strong, pale stomatal bands, margins finely serrulate, apex conic-acute to acuminate;
sheath 1–1.5(–2)cm, shed early.
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.
broadly ellipsoid-cylindric, ca. 15mm, pale red or yellow.
ellipsoid, ca. 6–10mm, red.
cones maturing in 2 years, shedding seeds and falling soon thereafter, spreading, symmetric, lance-ovoid before opening, cylindro-ovoid when open, 7–15cm, straw-colored, resinous, sessile to short-stalked, apophyses much thickened, strongly cross-keeled, umbo terminal, depressed.
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.
=24.
=24.
Pinus flexilis
Pinus balfouriana
Pinus flexilis, much branched with a strongly tapering trunk, is little utilized because of its form and relative inaccessibility. It reportedly forms intermediates with P. strobiformis where the two overlap. The fresh-cut wood has the odor of turpentine.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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.)
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