''Pinus engelmannii'', commonly known as the Apache pine, is a

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, e.g., including only woody plants with secondary growth, only ...

of Northern

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

, in the

Sierra Madre Occidental The Sierra Madre Occidental is a major mountain range system of the North American Cordillera, that runs northwest–southeast through northwestern and western Mexico, and along the Gulf of California. The Sierra Madre is part of the American C ...

with its range extending into the Southwestern

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. This

pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. ''World Flora Online'' accepts 134 species-rank taxa (119 species and 15 nothospecies) of pines as cu ...

is a medium-sized species with a height of and a trunk diameter of . The branches are sparse and very stout, giving the tree a distinct appearance. The needles, among the longest of any pine, are in bundles of three (occasionally five), long, stout, and spreading to slightly drooping. The cones are long, green or purple when growing, maturing glossy brown, moderately oblique with stoutly spined scales on the outer side (facing away from the branch). The Apache pine sometimes shows a grass stage like the related Michoacan pine (''P. devoniana'') and also

longleaf pine The longleaf pine (''Pinus palustris'') is a pine species native to the Southeastern United States, found along the coastal plain from East Texas to southern Virginia, extending into northern and central Florida. In this area it is also known as ...

(''P. palustris''). The English name refers to the species' occurrence in the lands of the

Apache The Apache ( ) are several Southern Athabaskan language-speaking peoples of the Southwestern United States, Southwest, the Southern Plains and Northern Mexico. They are linguistically related to the Navajo. They migrated from the Athabascan ho ...

Native Americans, while the scientific name commemorates the pioneering American botanist

George Engelmann George Engelmann, also known as Georg Engelmann, (2 February 1809 – 4 February 1884) was a German-American botanist. He was instrumental in describing the flora (plants), flora of the west of North America, then very poorly known to Europeans; ...

who discovered the species in 1848. Engelmann first named the species ''Pinus macrophylla'', but this name had already been used for another pine, so it had to be renamed; this was done by the French botanist Carrière, who chose to honour Engelmann. Apache pine was sometimes treated as a variety of ponderosa pine in the past (as '' P. ponderosa'' var. ''mayriana''), but it is now universally regarded as a distinct species.

References

External links

* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q137009 engelmannii Least concern plants Trees of Northern America Flora of the Sierra Madre Occidental Taxa named by Élie-Abel Carrière