Pinus 1069 



PINUS SABINIANA, Digger Pine 



Pinus Sabiniana, Douglas, in Trans. Linn. Soc. xvi. 747(1833); 'London, Arb. et. Frut. Brit. i\. 

 2246 (1838); Lawson, Pin. Brit. I 85, t. 11. (1884); Masters, in Gard. Chron. iv. 44, fig. 4 

 (1888), and V. 44, fig. 6 (1889), and in Journ. Linn. Soc. {Bot.) xxxv. 597 (1904); Sargent, 

 Silva N. Amer. xi. 95, tt. 569, 570 (1897), and Trees N. Amer. 23 (1905); Kent, Veitch's 

 Man. Conif. 375 (1900); Clinton-Baker, Illust Conif. i. 50 (1909). 



A tree, usually 20 to 50 ft, high, occasionally attaining 80 ft. in height and 1 2 

 ft. in girth. Bark about 2 in. thick, dark brown, irregularly divided into thick con- 

 nected scaly ridges. Young branchlets slender, glabrous, glaucous, with prominent 

 pulvini. Buds narrowly cylindrical, acute at the apex, about i in. long ; scales 

 closely appressed, more or less coated with resin, pale brown, with long white 

 fimbriae on the margins. 



Leaves in threes, persistent for three years, spreading or drooping, 7 to 12 in. 

 long, ^j in. wide, twisted, greyish green, with numerous stomatic lines on the three 

 surfaces, serrulate, ending in a cartilaginous point ; resin-canals median ; basal 

 sheath i in. long. 



Cones lateral, on stout stalks, pendulous, ovoid, dark brown, 6 to 10 in. long, 

 4 to 5 in. in diameter ; scales thick, about 2 in. long and r in. broad, with an 

 obliquely raised pyramidal apophysis, prolonged into a hooked process, usually ending 

 in a sharp incurved spine. Seeds in deep hollows on the scale, oblong, dark brown 

 or blackish, f in. long, \ in. wide, with a thick shell, encircled by the wing, which 

 is reduced to a very narrow sharp rim below, expanding above into a brown 

 thickened membrane, about \ in. long. The seeds are eaten and distributed by the. 

 Douglas squirrel, and, having a sweet resinous flavour, were formerly used as food 

 by the Indians of California. Cotyledons about 15 to 18. 



This species is readily distinguished from P. CouUeri by the greyish green 

 foliage and slender glaucous branchlets. Both have very massive cones, with 

 spurred scales, armed with spines, and very large seeds, differing, however, in the 

 length of the wing. The cones of P. Sabiniana are shorter and broader, and in this 

 country open more freely than those of P. Coulteri. According to Jepson,^ the trees 

 in Mitchell Canon, Mount Diablo, which he refers to P. Coulteri, resemble very closely 

 those oi P. Sabiniana in cones and foliage, and are intermediate between the two species. 



This pine, which^often divides into three or four stems 14 to 20 ft. above the 

 ground, forming a round-topped tree, remarkable for the sparseness of its foliage, is 

 scattered singly or in small groups over the dry and hot foot-hills of the inner Coast 

 Range, of the Sacramento Valley, and of the Sierra Nevada, throughout almost the 

 whole length of California, attaining its largest size east of the Sierra Nevada near 

 the centre of the state, where it is often the most conspicuous feature of the vegetation, 



Muir, in an article in Harpers Magazine^ notes that in the Sierra Nevada it 

 grows only in the torrid foot-hills, often amongst thickets of scrubby oaks, Ceanothus, 



' Flora W, Mid, California, 22 (1901). ^ Reproduced in Gard. Chron. iv. 44 (1888). 



