Pinus muricata
Pinus balfouriana
Bishop pine
foxtail pine
dark gray, deeply furrowed, ridges long, scaly-plated.
gray to salmon or cinnamon, platy or irregularly deep-fissured or with irregular blocky plates.
spreading-ascending, often contorted;
twigs stout to slender, orange-brown, aging darker brown, rough.
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-cylindric, dark brown, 1–2.5cm, resinous.
ovoid-acuminate, red-brown, 0.8–1cm, resinous.
2 per fascicle, spreading to upcurved, persisting 2–3 years, 8–15cm × (1.2–)1.5(–2)mm, slightly twisted, dark yellow-green, all surfaces with stomatal lines, margins strongly serrulate, apex abruptly conic-acute;
sheath to 1.5cm, base persistent.
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.
ellipsoid, to 5mm, orange.
ellipsoid, ca. 6–10mm, red.
cones maturing in 3 years, serotinous, long-persistent, mostly in whorls, mostly asymmetric, lanceoloid-ovoid before opening, curved-ovoid when open, 4–9cm, glossy bright to pale red-brown, sessile or on stalks to 1cm, mostly downcurved, scales with deep red-brown border distally on adaxial surface;
apophyses much thickened, the abaxial ones progressively more angulately dome-shaped toward base of cone;
umbo central, a stout-based, curved claw.
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 muricata
Pinus balfouriana
The several varieties described for Pinus muricata reflect the high variability in leaf characters and in degree of elaboration of apophysis and umbo in this species. The extremes can sometimes occur together.
Of conservation concern.
(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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