Pinus edulis Seeds | Pinon Pine
LATIN NAME: Pinus edulis
COMMON NAME: Pinon Pine, Colorado Pinon, Two-needle Pinon
Plant Profile
Pinon pine is a small, slow, stubborn tree of the dry Southwest, and it is one of the most useful plants in the region for people and wildlife alike. It reaches 5 to 10 metres, occasionally more, with a short trunk that often forks near the ground and a rounded, irregular crown of dense, dark, two-needled shoots. The needles are short — 3 to 5 cm — stiff and curved, and the cones are small, round, resinous and packed with large, thin-shelled, wingless seed. Those seeds are the point: they are rich, oily and good to eat, and they have been a staple food for people and wildlife for thousands of years. The tree grows on dry rocky slopes and mesas from Colorado and Utah through Arizona and New Mexico to west Texas and Oklahoma, usually between 1500 and 2500 metres, in open woodland with juniper.
Science & Biotechnology
Pinus edulis is a two-needle pinyon, one of a group of closely related species that between them cover the dry interior of Mexico and the southwestern United States — P. monophylla with single needles to the west, P. cembroides with three to the south, and P. edulis in the middle. The group is defined by large, wingless, animal-dispersed seed, and the relationship with the pinyon jay is one of the best-documented mutualisms in North American ecology: the birds harvest the seed, cache it in the soil in thousands of small stores, and recover enough to survive the winter while the forgotten caches become new trees. The tree is also drought-deciduous in extreme years, dropping its needle crop to conserve water, and it can live for six hundred years or more on a site where growth is measured in centimetres a decade.
Uses & Benefits
The seed is the crop: pine nuts, harvested in autumn from the cones before they open, eaten raw or roasted, and sold commercially as pinyon nuts. The wood is dense, resinous and excellent firewood, and it is used for fence posts and small construction; the resin was used as an adhesive, a waterproofing agent and incense. The tree is also planted as an ornamental in dry western gardens, where its slow, compact habit and its tolerance of drought and poor soil make it useful, though it is not a tree for a watered lawn. Ecologically it is a keystone of the pinyon-juniper woodland, providing food and cover for birds, rodents and deer, and its decline in some areas is linked to drought, bark beetles and climate change.
Growing from Seed
The seed has no dormancy worth speaking of but germinates best after a month of cold, moist stratification. Sow one to two centimetres deep in a deep pot of gritty compost at 18 to 22 °C; germination is usually within three to five weeks. The taproot is long and fast, so use a deep container and pot on early. Grow the seedling in full sun and lean, sharply drained soil, and water sparingly — this is a tree that resents summer irrigation. Plant out on a dry slope or a rocky bank at two or three years, and protect it from deer and from competition with grass. It is hardy to about minus 25 and tolerates drought, wind and poor soil, but not shade or wet ground.
Our Take
A slow, tough, generous little tree, grown for its nuts, its firewood and its place in the pinyon-juniper woodland; give it dry ground and leave it alone.
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