Pinyon Pine

Below you can see a pic of the Grand Canyon, taken from the Bright Angel Trailhead, on the South Rim.  I was so delighted to finally see the Grand Canyon, to me - and many others, of course - it's one of our greatest national treasures.  The far side of the canyon - where the elevation roughly matches the ground I'm standing at when I took this picture - is 18 miles away.  To put that in perspective, Manhattan Island is only 13.4 miles long.  Lanai is 18 miles long exactly.  The Canyon's width is 277 miles, which is more than the length of the entire state of Maryland.  It's compelling to try to comprehend something so vast, particularly when you are standing at the edge of it.  The depth, by the way, tops out at a mile.

Yes, but what about the plants???

 

Above you can see that, despite the rocky, soil-poor subgrade, trees have managed to create footholds in the cliffs.  Perhaps one of the most iconographic in this landscape is the pinyon pine, or Pinus edulis. 

 

Like all pines, the leaves are needles and occur in fascicles.  Pinyon pine has two needles per fascicle.  The needles are short and rigid.  The nuts - pinyon or pine nuts - they're the largest nuts you can gather from any pine. These are different from the Italian pignolis, which are the nuts of Pinus pinea.

 

Pinus edulis is one of the key species in the Pinyon-Juniper Belt - an ecosystem defined by the presence of the pine and Utah Juniper that occupies the region north of the desert but south of the colder canyons to the north.  Annual rainfall is limited to around 20 inches, so plants are adapted to drought.  The photo above shows the scrubby habit of a pinyon pine-dominant forest as seen from Cathedral Rock in Sedona.

  

Edulis literally means edible.  The nuts are in high demand by locals.  At times, people have even raided the nests of woodrats, gathering a yield of as much as 30 pounds.