Pinus longaeva
Pinus rigida
bristlecone pine, Great Basin bristlecone pine, intermountain bristlecone pine
pin rigide, pitch pine
red-brown, shallowly to deeply fissured with thick, scaly, irregular, blocky ridges.
red-brown, deeply and irregularly furrowed, with long, irregularly rectangular, flat, scaly ridges, resin pockets absent.
contorted, pendent;
twigs pale red-brown, aging gray to yellow-gray, puberulent, young branches resembling long bottlebrushes because of persistent leaves.
arching-spreading to ascending, poorly self-pruning; 2-year-old branchlets stout (mostly over 5mm thick), orange-brown, aging darker brown, rough.
ovoid-acuminate, pale red-brown, ca. 1cm, resinous.
ovoid to ovoid-cylindric, red-brown, ca. 1–1.5cm, resinous;
scale margins fringed, apex cuspidate.
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(–5) per fascicle, spreading to ascending, persisting 2–3 years, 5–10(–15)cm × 1–1.5(–2)mm, straight, twisted, deep to pale yellow-green, all surfaces with fine stomatal lines, margins serrulate, apex abruptly subulate-acuminate;
sheath 0.9–1.2cm, base persistent.
cylindro-ellipsoid, 7–10mm, purple-red.
cylindric, ca. 20mm, yellow.
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, shedding seeds soon thereafter or variously serotinous and long-persistent, often clustered, symmetric, conic to ovoid before opening, broadly ovoid with flat or slightly convex base when open, 3–9cm, creamy brown to light red-brown, sessile to short-stalked, base truncate, scales firm, with dark red-brown border on adaxial surface distally;
apophyses slightly raised, rhombic, with strong transverse keels;
umbo central, low-triangular, with slender, downcurved prickle.
=24.
Pinus longaeva
Pinus rigida
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 rigida often has poor form and is not valued highly as saw timber. It is fire successional, sprouts adventitiously, and is frequently shrubby in the northern part of its range. It is known to hybridize naturally with P. echinata.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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