Pinus Sabineana

''Pinus sabiniana'' (sometimes spelled ''P. sabineana'') is a pine endemic to California in the United States. Its vernacular names include towani pine, foothill pine, gray pine, ghost pine, and bull pine. The name digger pine was historically used but includes a racial slur.

Description

''Pinus sabiniana'' trees typically grow to , but can reach . The pine needles are in fascicles (bundles) of three, distinctively pale gray-green, sparse and drooping, and grow to in length. The seed cones are large and heavy, in length and almost as wide as they are long. When fresh, they weigh from , rarely over . The male cones grow at the base of shoots on the lower branches.

File:Pinus sabineana 00061.JPG, Bark
File:Pinus sabiniana (Gray Pine) - foliage (30485878313).jpg, Foliage
File:Pinus sabiniana pollen cones Pinnacles, California.jpg, Pollen cones
File:J20161101-0079—Gray pine cone, pine nuts, and resin—RPBG (30547385050).jpg, Cone, seeds, and resin

Taxonomy

Common name

The name digger pine supposedly came from the observation that the Paiute foraged for its seeds by digging around the base of the tree. It is more likely that the term was first applied to the people; "Digger Indians" was in common use in California literature from the 1800s. The historically more common name ''digger pine'' is still in widespread use. The Jepson Manual advises avoiding this name as the authors believe "digger" is pejorative in origin.

The tree is also sometimes thought of as a pinyon pine, though it does not belong to that group.

Botanical name

The scientific botanical name with the standard spelling ''sabiniana'' commemorates Joseph Sabine, secretary of the Horticultural Society of London. Some botanists proposed a new spelling ''sabineana'', because they were confused with Latin grammar. The proposal has not been accepted by the relevant authorities (i.e. United States Department of Agriculture, The Jepson Manual or Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN). The GRIN notes that the spelling ''sabiniana'' agrees with a provision in the Vienna Code of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, the governing body of botanical nomenclature. In that code, recommendation 60.2C states that personal names can be Latinized in species epithets: 'Sabine' is Latinised to ''sabinius'', with the addition of the suffix "-anus" (pertaining to) the word becomes ''sabiniana'' (In Latin, trees are feminine, irrespective if the word ends with a masculine suffix, i.e. ''pinus'').International Code of Botanical Nomenclature. 2006
Recommendation 60C.2
. Accessed online: 1 October 2010. The GRIN database notes that Sabine's last name is not correctable and therefore ''Pinus sabiniana'' is the proper name for the species.

Distribution and habitat

''Pinus sabiniana'' grows at elevations between sea level and and is common in the northern and interior portions of the California Floristic Province. It is found throughout the Sierra Nevada and Coast Ranges foothills that ring the Central, San Joaquin and interior valleys; the Transverse and Peninsular Ranges; and Mojave Desert sky islands. Multiple specimens have also been found in Southern Oregon as well. It is adapted to long, hot, dry summers and is found in areas with an unusually wide range of precipitation: from an average of per year at the edge of the Mojave to in parts of the Sierra Nevada. It prefers rocky, well drained soil, but also grows in serpentine soil and heavy, poorly drained clay soils. It commonly occurs in association with ''Quercus douglasii'', and "Oak/Foothill Pine vegetation" (also known as "Oak/Gray Pine vegetation") is used as a description of a type of habitat characteristic within the California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion in California, providing a sparse overstory above a canopy of the oak woodland.

Ecology

''Pinus sabiniana'' needles are a food of the caterpillars of the Gelechiid moth '' Chionodes sabinianus''. Fossil evidence suggests that it has only recently become adapted to the Mediterranean climate as its closest relatives are part of the Madrean pine-oak woodlands found at higher elevations in the southwest US and Mexico.

Animals help spread the seeds, including birds such as the scrub jay and acorn woodpecker.

Uses

Some Native American groups relied heavily on sweet pine nuts for food and are thought to have contributed to the current distribution pattern, including the large gap in distribution in Tulare County. Native Americans also consumed the roots.

Protein and fat nutritional value of the seed are similar to ''Pinus pinea'' seeds and figured in the local indigenous diet.

Wood uses historically were determined by its particular characteristics, e.g., 0.43 mean specific gravity nearly equal to Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii); strength properties similar to ponderosa pine; Kraft pulps high in bursting with tensile strength comparable to some northern conifer pulps; and foothill stands loggable in winter, when higher-altitude species were inaccessible. However, the high amounts of resin and compression wood, the often crooked form, heavy weight, and low stand density, made it expensive otherwise to log, transport and process. Commercial value decreased by the 1960s, to limited use for railroad ties, box "shook", pallet stock, and chips.

It may still offer potential as windbreak shelterbelt plantings.

The main turpentine constituent, heptane, an alkane hydrocarbon, at about 3 percent of needle and twig oil, is unusual in botany; the only other source in nature perhaps being the ''Pittosporum resiniferum'', known as "petroleum nut" or kerosene tree.

Notes

References

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* A. Farjon (2005). ''Pines: Drawings and descriptions of the genus Pinus''. Brill.
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* Discovery Channel (2010), ''MythBusters''
Episode 138
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Further reading

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External links

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USDA PLANTS Treatment for ''Pinus sabiniana'' (California foothill pine)
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sabiniana
Endemic flora of California
Trees of Northern America
Flora of the Sierra Nevada (United States)
Flora of the California desert regions
Natural history of the California chaparral and woodlands
Garden plants of North America
Ornamental trees
Drought-tolerant trees
Butterfly food plants
Edible nuts and seeds