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| ## singleleaf pinyon {#singleleaf-pinyon .Title-Header}               |
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| *Pinus monophylla* Torr. & Frem.                                      |
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| Plant Symbol = PIMO                                                   |
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Contributed by: USDA NRCS National Plant Data Center & the Davis
Arboretum

### 

###### Uses

*Ethnobotanic*: Traditionally different tribes in California, the Great
Basin, and the Southwest U.S. have utilized this tree for fuel wood and
the pine nuts for food. The Washoe have made pinyon supple branches into
stirring sticks for mixing pine nut soup. Pinyon pitch is melted and
applied by different tribes as an outer covering for baskets to make
them watertight or used to waterproof and repair pottery vessels. The
tree\'s large, orange-red to chocolate-brown seeds have been an
important food to Native Americans for millennia and are extremely
important today. The cones are still gathered in the fall by tribes in
California, the Great Basin and the Southwest roasted, parched, shelled,
winnowed, ground into a meal, and made into nutritious pine nut soup,
mush, and cakes. Another modern way to prepare the pine nuts, is to
roast them in the oven in their shells, and then shelled and eaten as a
snack. Since the trees produce good crops every several years, each
family relies on a series of groves, rotating harvests at different
groves\--depending upon which grove is the most productive. Since trees
can reach ages of more than 600 years, some of the tribal pinyon
gathering sites have been visited for many generations. Tools and
harvesting methods are purposefully designed to enhance or maintain
future

pinyon cone production. There are two major harvesting methods utilized
today by different tribes. The first method is to use a hooked stick
that brings down the flexible limbs of the tree and the green, immature
cones are hand-twisted from the branches before they open and disperse
their seeds. The hooked stick can also be used to snap cones off the
limbs. Sometimes children climb the trunks of the trees and hand pick
the cones, while others use ladders as a replacement for the hooked
sticks. Harvested cones are placed in plastic buckets, a modern
adaptation of the gathering basket. A second gathering method is to wait
until the cones open, and then whip the trees with a pole, knocking the
seeds out of the mature cones and collecting them from the ground.
During this process, dead or dying branches are pruned back, a practice
various tribes say is good for the trees.

*Other*: Early Euro-American settlers of the Great Basin logged pinyon
trees, for wood, fuel for heating, cooking, and to supply steam engines.
Pinyon charcoals were used to smelt the silver ores that became
Nevada\'s number one industry in the 1860\'s and 70\'s. In the last
three decades, public land agencies chained large tracts of pinyon trees
and reseeded areas with non-native grasses, such as crested wheatgrass
(*Agropyron cristatum*) to increase grasses for livestock. Other main
uses of singleleaf pinyon include fence posts, Christmas trees, and
edible seeds.

*Wildlife*: Many kinds of birds and small mammals feed on the seeds
including white-footed pinyon mice (*Peromyscus truei*), chipmunks
(*Tamias* spp.), golden-mantled ground squirrels (*Spermophilus
lateralis*), wood rats (*Neotoma* spp.), white-breasted nuthatches
(*Sitta carolinensis*), Clark\'s nutcrackers (*Nucifraga columbiana*)
and chickadees (*Parus* spp.). Black bears, deer, and porcupines feed on
the seeds, bark, and foliage of the pinyon pine, while mountain sheep
browse the foliage and twigs. The inner bark is a staple food of the
mountain pine beetle, as well as the fungus causing pinyon blister rust.
Even the pitch, dripping from pinecones is feasted upon by pitch midges,
and is harvested for the nests of *Dianthidium* bees. Saw flies feed on
either needles or pollen, while gall midges live in galls that occurs in
the needle fascicle.

###### Status

Please consult the PLANTS Web site and your State Department of Natural
Resources for this plant's current status and wetland indicator values.

###### Description

*General*: Pine Family (Pinacaeae). Singleleaf pinyon is an evergreen
tree reaching heights of up to 12 meters. When young, it forms a
pyramidal or rounded silhouette against the sky, while mature pinyons
display a more ungroomed, irregular branching appearance. The
cylindrical, bluish-gray leaves are generally one per bundle and 1 to 2
in. in length. The female cones are wind-pollinated. The subglobose
cones ripen in August of the second growing season, full of 1/2-inch
long, wingless seeds. Pinyon trees produce cones every three to seven
years. Trees usually do not start bearing cones before they are 35 years
old and do not start producing good seed crops before 100 years.

###### Distribution

For current distribution, please consult the Plant Profile page for this
species on the PLANTS Web site. It is found in pinyon-juniper woodland,
montane juniper woodlands, Jeffrey pine forests, sagebrush steppe,
montane white fir forest, and subalpine woodland. In pure stands below
2800 meters in the high Sierra Nevada, the Inyo and White Mountains, the
Tehachapi Mountains, and the Peninsular and Transverse Ranges of
southern and eastern California. Its range extends into Arizona, New
Mexico and northern Baja California in the southwest and occurs in the
dry mountain ranges of Nevada, Utah, and southeastern Idaho on the east.

###### Establishment

*Adaptation*: Singleleaf pinyon often grows in association with
California juniper (*Juniperus californica*), Sierra juniper (*J*.
*occidentalis*), or Utah juniper (*J*. *osteosperma*) with an understory
of shrubs and grasses such as basin sagebrush (*Artemisia californica*),
saltbush (*Atriplex* spp.), rabbitbrush (*Chrysothamnus* spp.), antelope
brush (*Purshia* spp.), hopsage (*Grayia spinosa*), Indian ricegrass
(*Achnatherum hymenoides*), blue-bunch wheatgrass (*Pseudoroegneria
spicatum* subsp. *spicatum*), and Idaho fescue (*Festuca idahoensis*).

###### 

*Planting*: This slow-growing tree is rarely seen in cultivation. The
seeds of pinyon need 1-3 months stratification to break winter dormancy
before planting unless the maximum germinating temperature is below 73
degrees F.

*Low elevation/warm winters*: Stratification is best done between the
months of January and March. One method is to take two cups of sponge
rock or perlite (expanded obsidian) and put it in a sieve and submerge
it in water and let it drain. The moistened perlite is then put in a
plastic Ziploc bag and 24 pinyon seeds (with shells removed) are placed
in the perlite. Remove much of the air and zip up the bag. Place the bag
on a tray and put it in the back of the refrigerator for three months.
Check seeds weekly for mold and discard any moldy material. If the
medium is dry, remoisten it, and make sure that the bag is completely
sealed.

Those that germinate should be planted with the root pointing straight
down in deep tree tubes in well-drained soils until ready for
out-planting. Plant 2-3 germinated seeds in soil 1/8 inch deep in each
tube. Place the tubes in filtered shade or on the north or east side of
a building or under a tree. Any leaf litter that falls on the tubes
should be removed. The tubes need to be protected from small mammals
with the construction and placement of a cage over the tubes. Water the
tubes once a week or more whenever the top of the soil is dry to the
touch.

Pinyon pine is slow growing and should be watered and kept in tubes for
one year. After that time, plant in well-drained soil to avoid the
possibility of fungus and in full exposure to sun in October, ideally
just before a good soaking rain. If the climate is really hot, put a
shade or shingle on one side of the tree to protect it from southwest
sunlight. Create a basin that is one foot wide and four or five inches
deep. Make sure the downhill side of the berm is higher than the uphill
side so the water will not run-off. Water deeply, but infrequently for
the first two to three years after planting. If there is a problem with
voles, mice, deer, rabbits, antelope, and other animals undermining the
roots and girdling the seedlings precautions need to be taken to create
above and below-ground wire mesh or tubes that protect the seedlings
until they get fully established. Singleleaf pinyon pines are
frost-resistant and extremely drought-tolerant, once established.

*High elevation/cold winters*: The seeds from singleleaf pinyon pine can
be directly planted just after harvest in tree tubes, placing 3 or 4
seeds per tube one-eighth inch deep. Set tubes outside and subjected to
freezing temperatures until spring. They are then watered as soon as the
ground thaws out and the soil surface becomes dry to the touch. The
seedlings are watered regularly (unless rains suffice) until out-planted
the following spring (one year later) as soon as the ground thaws out.
Once out-planted, continue to water for the first two to three years and
continue to protect the seedlings from large grazing animals and small
mammals.

###### Management

Fire harms pinyon trees. When the tree reaches adulthood Native
Americans traditionally prune back any dead wood that may accumulate. As
a strategy to protect the pinyon trees from fire, some tribes in
California and the Great Basin rake litter and duff from under pinenut
trees and hand remove shrubs that might act as a fuel ladder during a
fire. They prune back low-lying limbs under the trees that could catch
fire. Historically many areas in the pinyon juniper forests that were
places where people habitually camped or collected pine nuts were
carefully cleaned of underbrush as part of routine and necessary
maintenance.

The pinyon pine engraver (*Ips confusus*) is a bark beetle that inhabits
pinyon pine. The brown beetles bore egg galleries along the grain of the
wood. Dwarf mistletoe (*Arceuthobium campylopodum*) taps pinyon limbs
for water and nutrients, causing a hormonal imbalance, swelling in the
plant, and acting as a food sump. Pinyon pine is subject to attacks by a
host of other pathogens, most of which weaken but do not kill the tree.
This include needlecast fungi (*Bifusella pini*) which inhabits the
needles, pinyon bluster rust (*Cronartium occidentale*) which infects
the living branches, and elytroderma disease (*Elytroderma deformans*)
which upsets the hormonal balance causing bud stimulation. This leads to
the production of extra branches which gives the tree a brooming effect.
Brown crumbly rot (*Fomitopsis pinicola*), a heart rot fungus, will
decimate senescent trees. It moves from the heartwood into the roots,
rotting them, and the tree falls over.

###### Cultivars, Improved and Selected Materials (and area of origin)

This species is readily available from nurseries throughout its range.
Contact your local Natural Resources Conservation Service (formerly Soil
Conservation Service) office for more information. Look in the phone
book under "United States Government." The Natural Resources
Conservation Service will be listed under the subheading "Department of
Agriculture."

###### References

Curtis, E.S. 1924. *The Washo*. Pages 89-98 IN: F.W. Hodge (ed.), The
North American Indian Vol. 14.

Emery, D.E. 1988. *Seed propagation of native California plants*. Santa
Barbara Botanic Garden. Santa Barbara, California.

Fowler, C.S. 1986. *Subsistence*. Pages 64-97 IN: W.L. D\'Azevedo,
editor. *Handbook of North American Indians*. *Vol. 11: Great Basin*.
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Fowler, C.S. 1996. *Historical perspectives on Timbisha Shosone land
management practices, Death Valley, California.* Case Studies in
Environmental Archaeology. E.J. Reitz, L.A. Newsom, and S. J. Scudder
(eds.). Plenum Press, New York, New York.

Johnston, V.R. 1994. *California forests and woodlands: A natural
history*. University of California Press, Berkeley, California.

Lanner, R.M. 1983. *Trees of the Great Basin: A natural history*.
University of Nevada Press, Reno, Nevada.

Lanner, R.M. 1981. *The pinon pine: A natural and cultural history*.
University of Nevada Press, Reno, Nevada.

Martin, A.C., H.S. Zim, & A.L. Nelson 1951*. American wildlife and
plants: A guide to wildlife food habits*. Dover Publications, Inc., New
York, New York.

Meeuwig, R.O., J.D. Budy, & R.L. Everett 1990. *Pinus monophylla
singleleaf pinyon*. Pages 380-394 IN: Silvics of North America,
Volume 1. Conifers. R.M. Burns and B.H. Honkala (Tech. Coords). USDA,
Forest Service, Agriculture Handbook 654, Washington, DC.

Schmidt, M.G. 1980. *Growing California native plants*. University of
California Press, Berkeley, California.

USDA, NRCS 1999. *The PLANTS database*. National Plant Data Center,
Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Version: 05APR1999.

Vasek, F.C. & R.F. Thorne 1988. *Transmontane coniferous vegetation*.
Pages 797-812 IN: *Terrestrial vegetation of California*, M.G Barbour
and J. Major (eds.), California Native Plant Society.

###### Prepared By & Species Coordinators

*M. Kat Anderson*

USDA, NRCS, National Plant Data Center

c/o Plant Sciences Department, University of California, Davis,
California

*Warren Roberts*

Davis Arboretum, University of California, Davis, California

Edited: 18jan01 jsp; 29may03 ahv; 060802 jsp

For more information about this and other plants, please contact your
local NRCS field office or Conservation District, and visit the PLANTS
Web site\<[http://plants.usda.gov](http://plants.usda.gov/)\> or the
Plant Materials Program Web site
\<[http://Plant-Materials.nrcs.usda.gov](http://Plant-Materials.nrcs.usda.gov/)\>

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