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four-needle pinyon, nut pine, Parry pine, Parry pinyon, Parry pinyon pine, piñón, piñón de California

Habit Trees to 10m; trunk to 0.5m diam., straight, much branched; crown dense, becoming rounded.
Bark

red-brown, irregularly furrowed and cross-checked to irregularly rectangular, plates scaly.

Branches

spreading to ascending, persistent to trunk base;

twigs slender, pale orange-brown, puberulent-glandular, aging brown to gray-brown.

Buds

ovoid, light red-brown, ca. 0.4–0.5cm, slightly resinous.

Leaves

(3–)4(–5) per fascicle, persisting 3–4 years, (2–)3–6cm × (1–)1.2–1.7mm, curved, connivent, stiff, green to blue-green, margins entire to minutely scaly-denticulate, finely serrulate, apex subulate, adaxial surfaces mostly strongly whitened with stomatal bands, abaxial surface not so but 2 subepidermal resin bands evident;

sheath 0.5–0.6cm, scales soon recurved, forming rosette, shed early.

Pollen cones

ovoid, ca. 10mm, yellowish.

Seed(s)

cones maturing in 2 years, shedding seeds and falling soon thereafter, spreading, symmetric, ovoid before opening, broadly ovoid to depressed-globose when open, (3–)4–8(–10)cm, pale yellow-brown, sessile to short-stalked, apophyses thickened, strongly raised, diamond-shaped, transversely keeled, umbo subcentral, low-pyramidal or sunken, blunt.

Pinus quadrifolia

Habitat Dry rocky sites
Elevation 1200–1800m (3900–5900ft)
Distribution
from FNA
CA; Mexico in Baja California
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Pinus quadrifolia is the rarest pinyon in the flora. It hybridizes naturally with P. monophylla.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Source FNA vol. 2.
Parent taxa Pinaceae > Pinus
Sibling taxa
P. albicaulis, P. aristata, P. attenuata, P. balfouriana, P. banksiana, P. cembroides, P. clausa, P. contorta, P. coulteri, P. echinata, P. edulis, P. elliottii, P. engelmannii, P. flexilis, P. glabra, P. jeffreyi, P. lambertiana, P. leiophylla, P. longaeva, P. monophylla, P. monticola, P. muricata, P. palustris, P. ponderosa, P. pungens, P. radiata, P. resinosa, P. rigida, P. sabiniana, P. serotina, P. strobiformis, P. strobus, P. sylvestris, P. taeda, P. torreyana, P. virginiana, P. washoensis
Synonyms P. cembroides var. parryana, P. juarezensis, P. parryana
Name authority Parlatore ex Sudworth: U.S.D.A. Div. Forest. Bull. 14: 17. (1897)
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