Also called nut pine, pinyon pine, Mexican pinyon pine.

Description
Small, needle-leaf evergreen tree 15 to 30 feet or more in height, with trunk 114 feet or more in diameter and with compact, rounded, spreading crown. Needles 3 in a bundle, 1 to 3/4 inches long, slender, dark blue green. Cones egg-shaped, 1 to 1/2 inches long, light brown, with thick blunt scales and hard-shelled", brown seeds 3/8 inch long, oily and edible and known as pinyon nuts. Bark deeply furrowed into scaly ridges, reddish brown or blackish, on large trunks with flattened plates. Wood soft, heavy, resinous, yellow.

Distribution
Characteristic and common tree of the pinyon juniper woodland, associated with junipers and oaks, 5,000 to 7,500 feet elevation, in mountains along the Mexican border. New Mexico: mountains of southwestern corner in Hidalgo and Grant Counties. Arizona: mountains of southeastern part, from Cochise and Greenlee Counties west to Pima and Santa Cruz Counties. Also in northern and central Mexico.

Mexican pinyon differs from the common pinyon in its thinner needles in 3's which (in the form present in the United States) lack the whitish lines on the outer surface, in its smaller cones with smaller, hard-shelled seeds or nuts, and in its more southern, limited range along the Mexican border. Though they are extensively gathered and eaten in Mexico, Mexican pinyon nuts are of no economic importance in the United States. The small seeds are seldom produced in quantity and are too hard to be cracked with
the teeth. The pitchy wood is suitable for fuel.