A broad tree with a round head, similar in size and form, but not in ramification, to the cultivated Apple-tree; growing on arid slopes and table-lands. Its eastern limit is in southwestern Wyoming, central Colorado, Texas, western Tamaulipas and northwestern Vera Cruz. It ranges over Utah, Nevada, Arizona and the northern states of Mexico to the southern Sierras of California and to the northern and southern extremities of Lower California. It is recognized by its small cone, which expands, when open, into an irregular flat aggregate of loosely attached scales. The leaves are shorter than those of the other Pines of this group.
The cone of this species always retains its peculiar character. The variations are mainly in the number of leaves in the fascicle. On this character this Nut Pine is divided by many authors into four species—cembroides, with three slender leaves—edulis, with two stout leaves—monophylla, with one leaf and—Parryana, with four stout leaves. But there are intermediate forms that may be either cembroides or edulis, edulis or monophylla etc., and Voss's reduction of the four to a single species with three varieties seems to be justified (Mitt. Deutsch. Dendrol. Ges. xvi. 95).
Fig. 130, Cone, cone-scale and seed. Fig. 131, Open cone. Fig. 132, Branchlet with leaves and magnified leaf-section.
14. PINUS PINCEANA
- 1846 P. cembroides Gordon in Jour. Hort. Soc. Lond. i. 236, f. (not Zuccarini).
- 1858 P. Pinceana Gordon, Pinet. 204.
- 1882 P. latisquama Engelmann in Gard. Chron. ser. 2, xviii. 712. f. 125 (as to cone only).
Spring-shoots slender, pruinose. Leaves in fascicles of three, the sheath revolute at the base, then deciduous; stomata ventral, or ventral and dorsal; resin-ducts external. Scales of the conelet minutely mucronate. Cones from 6 to 9 cm. long, cylindrical, pendent on long peduncles; apophyses lustrous ochre-yellow, elevated in the centre, the umbo usually retaining the small prickle; seed large, bearing on its dorsal surface remnants of the spermoderm.
A small bushy tree with long slender branchlets, clear gray cortex, persistently smooth except on the lower part of the trunk, and glaucous-green foliage. It grows along water-courses, dry in autumn and winter, from southern Coahuila to central Hidalgo, and is associated with P. cembroides, from which it may be distinguished by its longer leaves and much longer cylindrical cone.
Fig. 127, Cone, cone-scale and seed. Fig. 128, Branchlet with leaves. Fig. 129, Magnified leaf-section.