Pinus edulis (Pinyon Pine),  Sabina osteosperma (Utah Juniper), and Sabina monosperma (One-seed Juniper) ,dominate hundreds of thousands of acres of western Colorado, central and western New Mexico, northeastern Arizona, and central and eastern Utah.  The area covered in this web site, the Four Corners of the Colorado Plateau, has extensive stands of these trees in the 4,000-8,000 foot vegetation zone.  Grasses, Sagebrush, Serviceberry, Mountain Mahogany, Blackbrush, and numerous wildflowers find homes in these vast forests.  The seeds of Pinyon and Juniper nourish most wildlife in these forests and beginning 2,000 years ago the Anasazi created a civilization with these trees: they built homes and fed, clothed, and warmed themselves with Pinyon Pine and Utah Juniper.  And they must have, as we still do today, found the redolence of a Juniper and Pinyon Pine fire to be one of the grand pleasures of life.

A forest of darker green Pinyon and yellow-green Juniper stretches through canyon country rock to the base of the Sleeping Ute Mountain.

     Today Native Americans of the Southwest and gourmet cooks around the world still prize Pinyon Pine nuts for snacking and cooking.  The rot resistant wood of the Juniper is used extensively for fence posts and its seeds are strung on necklaces as "Ghost Beads" by the Navajo.

     Most species of Sabina are commonly called "cedar" throughout the United States: "Cedar fence posts", "Cedar firewood", "Eastern Red Cedar", etc.  They are not Cedars.  The scientific name also has its share of confusion: most botanists still refer to the genus Sabina as Juniperus.

     "Pinus edulis", now the state tree of New Mexico, was first collected by Friedrich Wislizenus in the Sangre de Cristo Range of New Mexico and was first described by George Engelmann in Wislizenus' 1848 Tour through Northern Mexico .  (More biographical information.)

     Pinus edulis (below on the left) typically grows straight, drops its lower limbs as it ages, has dark, tight, fissured bark, and its foliage is open and airy.

Sabina osteosperma (above right) often bends, twists, and even reclines; it retains its dead limbs for decades (perhaps even centuries); and it has light gray, shredding bark.   Pinus edulis leaves are about two inches long and are thin and dark green in bundles of twos.  Sabina osteosperma has short, scale-like, light olive-green leaves.  (That's our Willi Coyote checking under the Juniper for Lizards to chase.)

     "Pinus edulis" is Latin for "edible pine".  See Sabina for more details about the Junipers.

Semi-desert, foothills. Woodlands. Spring.
Canyonlands National Park, Utah, November 11, 2005.

Pinyons are a most lovely, soft, dark green.  Throughout their adult life Pinyons have a rounded symmetrical shape, but after many decades most Pinyons lose their lower branches.  They grow 30 to 45 feet tall and three feet in diameter, with a handsome 30 foot crown spread.  Pinyons live long lives, perhaps 800 years -- unless, as the next picture shows they encounter severe drought.

Semi-desert, foothills. Woodlands. Spring.
Mule Canyon, November 7, 2006.

The drought years of the early 2000s fostered the proliferation of the Ips Beetle (Ips confusus) which devastated millions of Pinyons in the Southwest.  (Click for a brief survey.)  The Beetle is normally not a significant threat to the Pinyon Pine, but in drought years Pinyons cannot produce enough sap to close the holes the Beetles bore.  Thousands of Beetles attack a tree (you can actually hear them chewing) and kill it in a few months.  Needles die first; within a year or so the needles drop; and within two or three years the tree topples because its woody strength has been decimated.

Many homeowners who had gorgeous stands of Pinyons found themselves with hundreds of dead trees in the early 2000s.  A three acre plot of land often suffered the loss of 500 trees.

Such a massive die-off probably has not occurred for at least the past 500-1000 years, and it will take the arid Southwest centuries to regain its beautiful stands of Pinyons.

Semi-desert, foothills. Woodlands. Spring.
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, March 1, 2006.

Prolific nutting years such as the one this Pinyon just finished, are often followed by several lean years, apparently because the tree exhausts its energy in the production of pine nuts.  Since pine nuts take 3 seasons to mature (as explained below) any particular Pinyon has a good crop cycle of about 4 or 6 years, but this will vary with soil moisture.

Semi-desert, foothills. Woodlands. Spring.
Mesa Verde National Park, May 31, 2004. 
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, September 19, 2005.

Pinyon Pine, as all Pines, is monecious, that is, seed-bearing (female, "pistillate") and pollen bearing (male, "staminate") structures are separate but on each tree.  Pinyon Pine nuts take about twenty-six months to mature: cone buds are formed in the first summer; a small cone forms, opens, is pollinated, and closes in the second summer; this cone reopens in the third summer allowing the pollen inside to fertilize the eggs.  Growth is then rapid and by the end of the third summer the green, sappy, two inch seed cone matures, dries to light brown, and opens.   Light colored seed husks are almost always empty; good seed husks are usually dark brown.  The buff-yellow pine nuts inside the good husks are a  mainstay of many Colorado Plateau critters-- including Al and Betty.

Before the twenty-six month growing cycle begins again, it is common for several years to pass. Thus seed production is on about a four to six year cycle, a bit more frequent than the often stated seven year cycle.  The seven year cycle myth dates back at least to the mid-1870's: The botanist Townshend Brandegee states in his "Flora of Southwestern Colorado" (part of the Hayden Survey report for 1876) that Pinus edulis "is said to fruit once in seven years".