Insatiable Bark Beetle (9781926855677) by Halter Reese

Author:Halter, Reese [Halter, Dr. Reese]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-926855-67-7
Publisher: Assn of Canadian/Ebound Canada
Published: 2011-09-06T00:00:00+00:00

The Piñon Pines

The incredible piñon pines and their constant companions the junipers spread across the American Southwest, encompassing over 19 million hectares (47 million acres). Together, they make up the third largest wooded ecosystem in the USA. Importantly, the ecosystem revolves around the health and well-being of the piñons, as they nourish life throughout the Southwest.

Piñons and junipers have carved out an existence between the high deserts of the Southwest and the ponderosa pine forests of the Colorado Plateau. They live in the woodlands, where moisture is scarce and therefore tree crowns rarely touch one another or come close to forming an unbroken green canopy. Rather, clumps of trees that are 300 or 400 years old, with crowns like a parasol and thin trunks, grow very slowly. Open forest floors provide habitat for desert plants like yucca and prickly pear to live alongside the piñons and junipers. In the springtime, vibrant-red Indian paintbrush wildflowers adorn the piñon woodlands across the entire Southwest.

Pines date back about 180 million years to northern Asia during the Triassic Period of the Mesozoic Era. Not only did the pines provide shade for dinosaurs, they also helped modify the water and energy flow between the land and the atmosphere. Throughout the ages, climates changed and continents were pulled apart and thrust together. Pines migrated into North America across the Bering land bridge that connected Alaska with Siberia. They travelled as far south as Mexican peaks in the Rocky Mountain chain, where it is believed that the new species of piñon pines originated.

All pines – about 100 species worldwide – are conifers: cone-bearing evergreen trees with needles in a bundle (fascicle) that is attached to a shoot. There are usually two, three or five needles per fascicle. Only one species has just one needle per fascicle and it belongs to one of the 11 species of piñon pines. Los piñónes is the Spanish word for the edible seeds of desert conifers. Single-leaf piñon pines live in the Great Basin and in the hills of the Mohave Desert, with scattered populations in Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. The other member of the piñon clan found across the American Southwest is the Colorado piñon. This two-needled piñon is familiar to many because of its commercial nut, the pine nut, which is more accurately called its seed. Colorado piñons reside in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and eastern Utah in sprawling woodlands on mesas and along the foothills of the southern Rocky Mountains.

Living side by side with the piñons are three species of junipers, infamously known for their berries that are the primary flavouring in the alcoholic beverage called gin (a shortening of the Dutch word for juniper, jeneverbes). Alligator junipers are the most abundant throughout the Southwest and widespread in Mexico, with northern ranges extending into north-central Arizona and New Mexico. They are found with both single leaf and Colorado piñon. The second species, one-seed juniper, stretches from central Colorado to central Arizona, throughout New Mexico and southward into Mexico.

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