Pinus quadrifolia description

Pinus quadrifolia Parlatore ex Sudworth 1897

Common Names

Parry piñon, piñon (Elias 1987); four-leaved nut pine, Parry's nut pine (Peattie 1950); Sierra Juárez piñon (Lanner 1981).

Taxonomic notes

Subsection Cembroides (Perry 1991). Syn: P. cembroides var. quadrifolia (Silba 1986); Pinus cembroides var. parryana Voss, P. juarezensis Lanner, P. parryana Engelmann 1862 not Gordon 1858 (Kral 1993).

Lanner regards the P. quadrifolia populations described for the Sierra Juárez as juarezensis × monophylla hybrids and segregates P. juarezensis as a 5-needle piñon endemic to the Sierra Juárez of Baja California Norte and extreme S CA (Lanner 1981, Lanner 1974a, Lanner 1974b). Others regard P. juarezensis as a synonym for P. quadrifolia (Silba 1986). The most recent sources (Perry 1991, Kral 1993) accept that juarezensis × monophylla hybrids occur, but retain the taxon P. quadrifolia described here, although I do not find that Lanner's points have been effectively refuted.

Description

Trees or shrubs to 5-9(10) m tall and 30-50 cm in diameter, straight, much branched; crown dense, becoming rounded. Bark light grey and smooth, becoming 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. 0.4-0.5 cm, slightly resinous. Needles (3)4(5) per fascicle, persisting 3-4 years, (2)3-6 cm × (1-)1.2-1.7 mm, curved, connivent, stiff, sharp, 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 0.5-0.6 cm, scales soon recurved, forming rosette, shed early. Staminate cones ovoid, ca. 10 mm, yellowish. Ovulate 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. Seeds obovoid, body ca. 15 mm, brown, wingless (Little 1980, Kral 1993).

Range

USA: S California; Mexico: Baja California Norte (Silba 1986) at 1200-1800 m on dry gravelly slopes of foothills and mountains, in woodlands, often with junipers (Little 1980); see also Peattie (1950), Perry (1991), and Thompson et al. (1999).

Big Tree

Diameter 70 cm, height 16 m, crown spread 13 m. Locality: Riverside County, CA (American Forests 1996).

Common Names

Taxonomic notes

Description

Range

Big Tree

Oldest

Dendrochronology

Ethnobotany

Observations

Remarks

See Also