Pinus quadrifolia
Pinus clausa
four-needle pinyon, nut pine, Parry pine, Parry pinyon, Parry pinyon pine, piñón, piñón de California
sand pine, scrub pine, spruce pine
red-brown, irregularly furrowed and cross-checked to irregularly rectangular, plates scaly.
gray to gray-brown, furrowed, with narrow, flat, irregular ridges, resin pockets absent, on upper sections of the trunk reddish to red-brown, platy becoming smooth distally.
spreading to ascending, persistent to trunk base;
twigs slender, pale orange-brown, puberulent-glandular, aging brown to gray-brown.
spreading to ascending, poorly self-pruning;
twigs slender, violet- to red-brown, rarely glaucous, aging gray, smooth.
ovoid, light red-brown, ca. 0.4–0.5cm, slightly resinous.
cylindric, purple-brown, to 1cm;
scale margins white-fringed.
(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.
2 per fascicle, spreading-ascending, persisting 2–3 years, (3–)6–9(–10)cm × ca. 1mm, straight, slightly twisted, dark green, all surfaces with fine, inconspicuous stomatal lines, margins finely serrulate, apex short-conic;
sheath 0.3–0.5(–0.7)cm, base persistent.
ovoid, ca. 10mm, yellowish.
ellipsoid, ca. 10mm, brownish yellow.
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 soon thereafter or often long-serotinous, long-persistent, solitary or whorled, spreading, symmetric (rarely slightly asymmetric, reflexed), lanceoloid before opening, ovoid to broadly ovoid when open, 3–8cm, red-brown, sessile or on stalks to 1cm, scales with dark red-brown, purple, or purple-gray border distally on adaxial surface;
apophyses thickened, shallowly and angulately raised, transversely rhombic, cross-keeled;
umbo central, low-pyramidal, tapering to sharp tip or weak, often deciduous prickle.
=24.
Pinus quadrifolia
Pinus clausa
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.)
Although Pinus clausa is too profusely branched to be important for saw timber, it is managed to produce a high volume of pulpwood in northern peninsular Florida.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
CA
WildflowerSearch
iNaturalist
USDA Plants Database
