Pinus longaeva |
Pinus attenuata |
|
---|---|---|
bristlecone pine, Great Basin bristlecone pine, intermountain bristlecone pine |
knobcone pine |
|
Habit | Trees to 16m; trunk to 2m diam., strongly tapering; crown rounded, flattened (sheared), or irregular. | Shrubs or trees to 24m; trunk to 0.8m diam., usually straight; crown mostly narrowly to broadly conic. |
Bark | red-brown, shallowly to deeply fissured with thick, scaly, irregular, blocky ridges. |
purple-brown to dark brown, shallowly and narrowly fissured, with irregular, flat, loose-scaly plates, on upper sections of trunk nearly smooth. |
Branches | contorted, pendent; twigs pale red-brown, aging gray to yellow-gray, puberulent, young branches resembling long bottlebrushes because of persistent leaves. |
ascending; twigs slender, red-brown. |
Buds | ovoid-acuminate, pale red-brown, ca. 1cm, resinous. |
ovoid to ovoid-cylindric, dark red-brown, aging darker, ca. 1.5cm, resinous; scale margins fringed, apex attenuate. |
Leaves | mostly 5 per fascicle, upcurved, persisting 10–30 years, 1.5–3.5cm × 0.8–1.2mm, mostly connivent, deep yellow-green, with few resin splotches but often scurfy with pale scales, abaxial surface without median groove but with 2 subepidermal but evident resin bands, adaxial surfaces conspicuously whitened with stomates, margins entire or remotely and finely serrulate distally, apex bluntly acute to short-acuminate; sheath ca. 1cm, soon forming rosette, shed early. |
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 | cylindro-ellipsoid, 7–10mm, purple-red. |
ellipsoid-cylindric, 10–15mm, orange-brown. |
Seed(s) | cones maturing in 2 years, shedding seeds and falling soon thereafter, spreading, symmetric, lance-cylindric with rounded base before opening, lance-cylindric to narrowly ovoid when open, 6–9.5cm, purple, aging red-brown, nearly sessile; apophyses much thickened, sharply keeled; umbo central, raised on low buttress, truncate to umbilicate, abruptly narrowed to slender but stiff, variable prickle 1–6mm, resin exudate pale. |
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 longaeva |
Pinus attenuata |
|
Habitat | Subalpine and alpine | Fire successional on dry slopes and foothills of Sierra Nevada and the Cascade and Coast ranges |
Elevation | 1700–3400m (5600–11200ft) | 300–1200m (1000–3900ft) |
Distribution |
CA; NV; UT
|
CA; OR; Mexico in Baja California
|
Discussion | Pinus longaeva is considered by dendrochronologists to be the longest-lived tree. One tree was estimated to be 5000 years old. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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. | FNA vol. 2. |
Parent taxa | Pinaceae > Pinus | Pinaceae > Pinus |
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | P. aristata var. longaeva | P. tuberculata |
Name authority | D. K. Bailey: Ann. Missouri Bot. Gard. 57: 243. (1970) | Lemmon: Mining Sci. Press 64: 45. (1892) |
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