The pinyon or piñon pine group grows in southwestern North America, especially in New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah. The trees yield edible

nuts Nut often refers to: * Nut (fruit), fruit composed of a hard shell and a seed, or a collective noun for dry and edible fruits or seeds * Nut (hardware), fastener used with a bolt Nut or Nuts may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Com ...

, which are a staple food of Native Americans, and widely eaten as a

snack A snack is a small portion of food generally eaten between meals. Snacks come in a variety of forms including packaged snack foods and other processed foods, as well as items made from fresh ingredients at home. Traditionally, snacks are p ...

and as an ingredient in New Mexican cuisine. The name comes from the Spanish ''pino piñonero'', a name used for both the American varieties and the stone pine common in Spain, which also produces edible nuts typical of Mediterranean cuisine. Harvesting techniques of the prehistoric American Indians are still used today to collect the pinyon seeds for personal use or for commercialization. The pinyon nut or seed is high in fats and calories. Pinyon wood, especially when burned, has a distinctive fragrance, making it a common wood to burn in

chimenea A chimenea , also spelled chiminea (from Spanish: ''chimenea'' which derive from French ''cheminée'', "chimney"), is a freestanding front-loading fireplace or oven with a bulbous body and usually a vertical smoke vent or chimney. History Hist ...

s. Pinyon pine trees are also known to influence the soil in which they grow by increasing concentrations of both macronutrients and micronutrients. Some of the species are known to hybridize, the most notable ones being ''P. quadrifolia'' with ''P. monophylla'', and ''P. edulis'' with ''P. monophylla''. The two-needle piñon (''Pinus edulis'') is the official

state tree This is a list of U.S. state, federal district, and territory trees, including official trees of the following of the states, of the federal district, and of the territories. Table See also * List of U.S. state, district, and territorial insign ...

of New Mexico.

Evolutionary History

The evolutionary origins of the piñons appear to coincide with the Laramide Orogeny

Species

Genetic differentiation in the pinyon pine has been observed associated to insect herbivory and environmental stress. There are eight species of true pinyon ('' Pinus'' subsection ''Cembroides''): * '' Pinus cembroides'' – Mexican pinyon * '' Pinus orizabensis'' – Orizaba pinyon * ''

Pinus johannis ''Pinus johannis'', the Johann's pine, is a pine in the pinyon pine group, native to North America. The range extends from southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico, United States, south in Mexico along the Sierra Madre Occidental and the Sie ...

'' – Johann's pinyon (includes '' P. discolor'' – border pinyon) * '' Pinus culminicola'' – Potosi pinyon * '' Pinus remota'' – Texas pinyon or papershell pinyon * '' Pinus edulis'' – two-needle piñon or Colorado pinyon * '' Pinus monophylla'' – single-leaf pinyon * '' Pinus quadrifolia'' – Parry pinyon (includes ''P. juarezensis''). These additional Mexican species are also related, and mostly called pinyons: * '' Pinus rzedowskii'' – Rzedowski's pine * '' Pinus pinceana'' – weeping pinyon * '' Pinus maximartinezii'' – big-cone pinyon * '' Pinus nelsonii'' – Nelson's pinyon The three bristlecone pine species of the high mountains of the southwestern United States, and the

lacebark pines ''Pinus bungeana'' (English: Bunge's pine or lacebark pine or white-barked pine; Chinese: 白皮松 Japanese: シロマツ, ) is a pine tree native to northeastern and central China. It is a slow-growing tree In botany, a tree is a pe ...

of Asia are closely related to the pinyon pines.

Piñon seeds in Native American cuisine

The seeds of the pinyon pine, known as " pine nuts" or "piñóns", are an important food for American Indians living in the mountains of the North American Southwest. All species of pine produce edible seeds, but in North America only pinyon produces seeds large enough to be a major source of food. The pinyon has likely been a source of food since the arrival of ''Homo sapiens'' in the

Great Basin The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic basin, endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja California ...

and American Southwest ( Oasisamerica). In the Great Basin, archaeological evidence indicates that the range of the pinyon pine expanded northward after the Ice Age, reaching its northernmost (and present) limit in southern Idaho about 4000 BCE. Early Native Americans undoubtedly collected the edible seeds, but, at least in some areas, evidence of large quantities of pinyon nut harvesting does not appear until about 600 CE. Increased use of pinyon nuts was possibly related to a population increase of humans and a decline in the number of game animals, thereby forcing the Great Basin inhabitants to seek additional sources of food. The suitability of pinyon seeds as a

staple food A staple food, food staple, or simply a staple, is a food that is eaten often and in such quantities that it constitutes a dominant portion of a standard diet for a given person or group of people, supplying a large fraction of energy needs and ...

is reduced because of the unreliability of the harvest. Abundant crops of cones and seeds occur only every two to seven years, averaging a good crop every four years. Years of high production of seed tend to be the same over wide areas of the pinyon range.

Traditional method of harvesting

In 1878, naturalist John Muir described the Indian method of harvesting pinyon seeds in Nevada. In September and October, the harvesters knocked the cones off the pinyon trees with poles, stacked the cones into a pile, put brushwood on top, lit it, and lightly scorched the pinyon cones with fire. The scorching burned off the sticky resin coating the cones and loosened the seeds. The cones were then dried in the sun until the seeds could be easily extracted. Muir said the Indians closely watched the pinyon trees year-round and could predict the scarcity or abundance of the crop months before harvest time. In 1891, B. H. Dutcher observed the harvesting of pinyon seeds by the Panamint Indians (

Timbisha The Timbisha ("rock paint", Timbisha language: Nümü Tümpisattsi) are a Native American tribe federally recognized as the Death Valley Timbisha Shoshone Band of California. They are known as the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe and are located in sout ...

people) in the Panamint Range overlooking Death Valley, California. The harvesting method was similar to the foregoing, except that the pinyon seeds were extracted immediately after the cones had been scorched in the brushwood fire. Both the above accounts described a method of extracting the seeds from the green cones. Another method is to leave the cones on the trees until they are dry and brown, then beat the cones with a stick, knocking the cones loose or the seeds loose from the cones which then fall to the ground where they can be collected. The nomadic hunter-gathering people of the Great Basin usually consumed their pinyon seeds during the winter following harvest; the agricultural Pueblo people of the

Rio Grande The Rio Grande ( and ), known in Mexico as the Río Bravo del Norte or simply the Río Bravo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The length of the Rio G ...

valley of New Mexico could store them for two or three years in pits. Each pinyon cone produces 10 to 30 seeds and a productive stand of pinyon trees in a good year can produce on of land. An average worker can collect about of unshelled pinyon seed in a day's work. Production per worker of 22 pounds of unshelled pinyon seeds—more than one-half that in shelled seeds—amounts to nearly 30,000 calories of nutrition. That is a high yield for the effort expended by hunter-gatherers. Moreover, the pinyon seeds are high in fat, often in short supply for hunter-gatherers.Jeffers, pp. 195–196; "Piñon nuts, roasted (Navajo)", http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/ethnic-foods/10473/2, accessed 30 July 2015

Relationship with wildlife

The pinyon jay (''Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus'') takes its name from the tree, and pinyon nuts form an important part of its diet. It is very important for regeneration of pinyon woods, as it stores large numbers of the seeds in the ground for later use, and excess seeds not used are in an ideal position to grow into new trees. The Mexican jay is also important for the dispersal of some pinyon species, as, less often, is the Clark's nutcracker. Many other species of animal also eat pinyon nuts, without dispersing them.

References

External links

*
Pine classification

Images of the cones of all the pinyons and allied pines {{Taxonbar, from=Q1476258 Pinus taxa by common names Edible nuts and seeds Flora of Northeastern Mexico Flora of Northwestern Mexico Flora of the Northwestern United States Flora of the South-Central United States Flora of the Southwestern United States Flora of the Great Basin Crops originating from indigenous Americans Crops originating from North America Crops originating from Pre-Columbian North America Plants used in Native American cuisine Native American culture Non-timber forest products Pinus Trees of Northeastern Mexico Trees of Northwestern Mexico Trees of the Great Basin Trees of the Northwestern United States Trees of the South-Central United States Trees of the Southwestern United States Garden plants of North America Drought-tolerant trees Ornamental trees Plant subsections