Everything about Potosi Pinyon totally explained
Potosi Pinyon (
Pinus culminicola) is a
pine in the
pinyon pine group, native to northeast
Mexico. The range is highly localised, confined to a small area of high summits in the northern
Sierra Madre Oriental in
Coahuila and
Nuevo León, and only abundant on the highest peak,
Cerro Potosí (3713 m). It occurs at very high altitudes, from 3000-3700 m, in cool, moist subalpine climate conditions.
It is a medium-size
shrub, reaching 1.5-5 m tall and with a trunk diameter of up to 25 cm. The bark is grey-brown, thin and scaly at the base of the trunk. The
leaves ('needles') are in fascicles of five, slender, 3-5.5 cm long, and deep green to blue-green, with
stomata confined to a bright white band on the inner surfaces. The
cones are globose, 3-4 cm long and broad when closed, green at first, ripening yellow-brown when 16-18 months old, with only a small number of thin, fragile scales, typically 6-14 fertile scales. The cones open to 4-6 cm broad when mature, holding the
seeds on the scales after opening. The seeds are 9-12 mm long, with a thick shell, a white
endosperm, and a vestigial 1-2 mm wing; they're dispersed by the
Clark's Nutcracker and
Mexican Jay, which pluck the seeds out of the open cones. The jays, which uses the seeds as a major food resource, store many of the seeds for later use, and some of these stored seeds are not used and are able to grow into new plants.
Because of its isolation on a handful of remote mountain summits, Potosi Pinyon escaped discovery until
1959. It differs from most other pinyon species in needle number, with 5 per fascicle, rather than 1-4, and in its consistently shrubby stature. It is most closely related to
Johann's Pinyon and
Orizaba Pinyon, like them having the leaf stomata confined to the inner faces; it also differs from the latter in its smaller cones and seeds. Like these two, the white-glaucous inner surfaces of the needles make it a very attractive slow-growing shrub, suitable for small
gardens.
Like other pinyons, the seeds (
pine nuts) are edible, but the inaccessibility of the plants prevents significant collected for food.
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