Pinus quadrifolia
Pinus aristata
four-needle pinyon, nut pine, Parry pine, Parry pinyon, Parry pinyon pine, piñón, piñón de California
bristlecone pine, Colorado bristlecone pine, Rocky Mountain bristlecone pine
red-brown, irregularly furrowed and cross-checked to irregularly rectangular, plates scaly.
gray to red-brown, shallowly fissured, with long, flat, irregular ridges.
spreading to ascending, persistent to trunk base;
twigs slender, pale orange-brown, puberulent-glandular, aging brown to gray-brown.
contorted;
twigs pale red-brown, aging gray, puberulent, young branches resembling long bottlebrushes because of persistent leaves.
ovoid, light red-brown, ca. 0.4–0.5cm, slightly resinous.
ovoid-acuminate, pale red-brown, ca. 1cm, resinous.
(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.
5 per fascicle, upcurved, persisting 10–17 years, (2–)3–4cm × 0.8–1mm, mostly connivent, deep blue-green, with drops and scales of resin, abaxial surface with strong, narrow median groove, adaxial surfaces conspicuously whitened by stomates, margins entire or distantly serrulate, apex conic-acute to conic-subulate;
sheath 0.5–1.5cm, scales soon recurving, shed early.
ovoid, ca. 10mm, yellowish.
ellipsoid, ca. 10mm, bluish to red.
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.
cones maturing in 2 years, shedding seeds and falling soon thereafter, spreading, symmetric, lance-cylindric before opening, lance-ovoid to ovoid or cylindric when open, 6–11cm, purple to brown, nearly sessile;
apophyses much thickened;
umbo central, with triangular base, extended into slender, brittle prickle 4–10mm.
=24.
Pinus quadrifolia
Pinus aristata
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.)
Pinus aristata has leaves usually narrower and sharper than in P. longaeva and P. balfouriana, and the leaves almost always have a narrow, median groove on the abaxial surface.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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