The Pines 



slender prickles which arm the scales of its cones, giving the tree 

 its common name, "prickle-cone pine." The tree is bushy, 

 with whorls of short branches, regular at first, but unsymmetri- 

 cal when old. Its range extends from western Colorado to 

 southern California and includes Nevada and Arizona. It keeps 

 as close as possible to the timber line, and varies from a stocky 

 tree 40 feet high to a prostrate shrub. In cultivation in the East- 

 ern States it is a handsome, bushy shrub. 



The Nut Pine {P. qiiadrifoHa, Sudw.) is easily distin- 

 guished by its leaves, which are usually in fours. No other pine 

 has this number of leaves in a bundle. The tree inhabits the 

 mountains of southern and Lower California, growing to the 

 height of 40 feet in favourable localities. It is a desert pine, fur- 

 nishing the Indians an important article of food in its rich, nut- 

 like seeds. Its cultivation is confined to southern California. 



The Nut Pine {P. cembroides, Zucc), a bushy tree of the 

 canon sides in Arizona and Lower California, may also be men- 

 tioned as an important source of food. The nuts are sold in 

 most towns in northern Mexico. Its scaly bark distinguishes this 

 tree from other nut pines. 



The Nut Pine, or Pinon {P. edulis, Engelm.), of Colorado, 

 New Mexico and Texas, is an important source of food to Mexi- 

 cans and Indians. The tree grows in forests on the high South- 

 western table lands, and follows the mountains into Mexico. Its 

 leaves are very short, stiff, and in clusters of threes, its globular 

 cones, scarcely over an inch in length, are woody, and the wing- 

 less seeds, two on each scale, about the size and shape of honey- 

 locust seeds, are sweet and nutritious. 



The one-leaved Nut Pine CP. monophylla, Torr.) is small 

 and irregular, with the form of an old apple tree. Its single, 

 cylindrical leaf, pale greyish green (in a cluster evidently intended 

 to have two), sets it apart from other pines. Its plenteous little 

 cones invest the tree with its greatest human interest. 



"It is the commonest tree of the short mountain ranges cf 

 the Great Basin. Tens of thousands of acres are covered with it, 

 forming bountiful orchards for the red man. Being so low and 

 accessible, the cones are easily beaten off with poles, and the 

 nuts procured by roasting until the scales open. To the tribes of 

 the desert and sage plains these seeds are the staff of life. They 

 are eaten either raw or parched, or in the form of mush or cakes 



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