Trees of Pinus cembroides from several collections in Mexico (for example, J. Hjerting & S. Ødum 17 from Chihuahua in 1989, and a number of gatherings by M.F. Gardner and S.G. Knees in Hidalgo in 1993) are grown in the Scottish botanical gardens and are happy in well-drained sites there. At the Hillier Gardens a specimen from Gardner & Knees 5185 was 1.6 m tall in 2007, suggesting that it is slow-growing in cultivation. As a drought-tolerant tree it would seem to be well suited to the drier parts of England, and more widely in southern Europe. A gold-leaved selection found by John Fairey has been named ‘Peña Nevada Gold’ and is in cultivation at the University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley.

Bean’s Trees and Shrubs

Pinus cembroides

A bushy tree usually 15 to 20 ft high, sometimes 40 or 50 ft, the young branches slender, glaucous. Leaves mostly in threes, sometimes in pairs, persisting for about three years, 1 to 2 in. long, dark green; in each cluster the inner faces of the leaves are pressed together, especially when young; margins not toothed; leaf-sheath at first 1⁄4 to 3⁄8 in. long, the scales afterwards becoming reflexed and forming a rosette round the base of each cluster. Cones roundish, egg-shaped, 11⁄2 to 2 in. long, 1 to 11⁄2 in. wide, with very few scales. Seeds 1⁄2 in. long, edible.

Native of Mexico (including northern Baja California) and of bordering parts of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas; introduced by Hartweg in 1839, but very rare in collections. The seeds are sold in Mexican markets as ‘piñones’.

From New Trees

Pinus cembroides complex

(Subgen. Strobus, Sect. Parrya)

The delimitation of the taxa allied to Pinus cembroides is disputed, some (Farjon & Styles 1997, Farjon 2001, 2005a) regarding them as variants of a wide-ranging, morphologically variable species, while others (Perry 1991, Malusa 1992, Price et al. 1998, Richardson 1998, Gernandt et al. 2003) prefer to view them as separate species. The latter approach seems to be that most favoured by fieldworkers in Mexico, and we have adopted it here, especially as the taxa also have horticultural distinctions. A key to the species considered by Farjon (2001) to be intraspecific is given below, adapted from Farjon & Styles (1997) with the assistance of Michael Frankis. Specific accounts follow the normal alphabetical order.

In this wide sense, Pinus cembroides is one of the most important producers of pinyon (pine nuts) in Mexico (Rodriguez-Franco 2002), and it also has considerable potential in horticulture. In most forms it is usually a rather low, multistemmed broad bush, but can develop into a taller tree, usually with stiffly spreading branches. The literature is vague as to the precise identity of cultivated material in the United States, where P. cembroides (s.l.) is recommended for its tolerance of drought and alkaline soils (Gilman & Watson 1994a) and is occasionally used in landscapes (Dirr 1998), but all the taxa in this group could clearly be more widely planted, in the United States and in Europe.