Gray Pine
Encyclopedia
Pinus sabiniana with the common names gray pine, California foothill pine, and the more historically and internationally used digger pine, is a pine
Pine
Pines are trees in the genus Pinus ,in the family Pinaceae. They make up the monotypic subfamily Pinoideae. There are about 115 species of pine, although different authorities accept between 105 and 125 species.-Etymology:...

 endemic
Endemic (ecology)
Endemism is the ecological state of being unique to a defined geographic location, such as an island, nation or other defined zone, or habitat type; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. For example, all species of lemur are endemic to the...

 to California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It is also known as foothill pine, ghost pine, bull pine, and nut pine.

Description

The Pinus sabiniana tree typically grows to 36–45 ft (11–13.7 m), but can reach 105 feet (32 m) feet in height. The needles of the pine are in fascicles (bundles) of three, distinctively pale gray-green, sparse and drooping, and grow to 20–30 cm (7.9–11.8 in) in length. The seed cone
Conifer cone
A cone is an organ on plants in the division Pinophyta that contains the reproductive structures. The familiar woody cone is the female cone, which produces seeds. The male cones, which produce pollen, are usually herbaceous and much less conspicuous even at full maturity...

s are large and heavy, 12–35 cm (4.7–13.8 in) in length and almost as wide as they are long. The male cones grow at the base of shoots on the lower branches.

Distribution and habitat

Pinus sabiniana grows at elevations between sea level and 4000 feet (1,219.2 m), and is found throughout the state except for the most southerly counties and the eastern counties south of Lake Tahoe
Lake Tahoe
Lake Tahoe is a large freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada of the United States. At a surface elevation of , it is located along the border between California and Nevada, west of Carson City. Lake Tahoe is the largest alpine lake in North America. Its depth is , making it the USA's second-deepest...

. It grows in rocky soil under dry conditions. 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
Habitat (ecology)
A habitat is an ecological or environmental area that is inhabited by a particular species of animal, plant or other type of organism...

 characteristic within the California chaparral and woodlands
California chaparral and woodlands
The California chaparral and woodlands is a terrestrial ecoregion of lower northern, central, and southern California and northwestern Baja California , located on the west coast of North America...

 ecoregion
Ecoregion
An ecoregion , sometimes called a bioregion, is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than an ecozone and larger than an ecosystem. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and contain characteristic, geographically distinct assemblages of natural...

 in California, providing a sparse overstory above a canopy of the oak woodland
California oak woodland
California oak woodland is a plant community found throughout the California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion of California in the United States and northwestern Baja California in Mexico...

. It is found throughout the: Sierra Nevada and Coast Ranges foothills
Foothills
Foothills are geographically defined as gradual increases in elevation at the base of a mountain range. They are a transition zone between plains and low relief hills to the adjacent topographically high mountains.-Examples:...

 that ring the Central, San Joaquin
San Joaquin Valley
The San Joaquin Valley is the area of the Central Valley of California that lies south of the Sacramento – San Joaquin River Delta in Stockton...

 and interior valleys; the Transverse
Transverse Ranges
The Transverse Ranges are a group of mountain ranges of southern California, in the Pacific Coast Ranges physiographic region that runs along the Pacific coast from Alaska to Mexico in North America. The Transverse Ranges begin at the southern end of the California Coast Ranges and lie between...

 and Peninsular Ranges
Peninsular Ranges
The Peninsular Ranges are a group of mountain ranges, in the Pacific Coast Ranges, which stretch from southern California in the United States to the southern tip of Mexico's Baja California peninsula; they are part of the North American Coast Ranges that run along the Pacific coast from Alaska...

; and Mojave Desert
Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert occupies a significant portion of southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, in the United States...

 sky islands
Sky Islands
Sky Islands is a 1993 Jazz album by Ramsey Lewis released on GRP Records.The album peaked at #4 on the Billboard Top Contemporary Jazz Albums chart.-Track listing:-Personnel: *Tony Carpenter - Percussion, Background Vocals...

.

Ecology

Pinus sabiniana needles are the only known food of the caterpillar
Caterpillar
Caterpillars are the larval form of members of the order Lepidoptera . They are mostly herbivorous in food habit, although some species are insectivorous. Caterpillars are voracious feeders and many of them are considered to be pests in agriculture...

s of the Gelechiid
Gelechiidae
Gelechiidae is a family of moths commonly referred to as twirler moths or gelechiid moths. They are the namesake family of the huge and little-studied superfamily Gelechioidea, and the Gelechiidae's relationships with and delimitation against their relatives have been subject to considerable...

 moth
Moth
A moth is an insect closely related to the butterfly, both being of the order Lepidoptera. Moths form the majority of this order; there are thought to be 150,000 to 250,000 different species of moth , with thousands of species yet to be described...

 Chionodes
Chionodes
Chionodes is a genus of moths of the family Gelechiidae. Members of this group can be found in most parts of the world. Many species of this genus utilize Douglas-fir as a host plant for their larvae.-Species:Species in this genus include:...

 sabinianus
.

Common name

The name Digger Pine supposedly came from the observation that the Paiute
Paiute
Paiute refers to three closely related groups of Native Americans — the Northern Paiute of California, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon; the Owens Valley Paiute of California and Nevada; and the Southern Paiute of Arizona, southeastern California and Nevada, and Utah.-Origin of name:The origin of...

 foraged for its seeds by digging around the base of the tree, although 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 the use of this name as the term "digger" is pejorative in origin. It is also sometimes thought of as a pinyon pine
Pinyon pine
The pinyon pine group grows in the southwestern United States and in Mexico. The trees yield edible pinyon nuts, which were a staple of the Native Americans, and are still widely eaten...

, though it does not belong to that group.

Botanic name

The scientific botanical name
Botanical name
A botanical name is a formal scientific name conforming to the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature and, if it concerns a plant cultigen, the additional cultivar and/or Group epithets must conform to the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants...

 with the standard spelling sabiniana commemorates Joseph Sabine
Joseph Sabine
Joseph Sabine was an English lawyer, naturalist and writer on horticulture.He was born into a prominent Anglo-Irish family in Tewin, Hertfordshire, the eldest son of Joseph Sabine. His younger brother was Sir Edward Sabine....

, secretary of the Horticultural Society of London
Royal Horticultural Society
The Royal Horticultural Society was founded in 1804 in London, England as the Horticultural Society of London, and gained its present name in a Royal Charter granted in 1861 by Prince Albert...

. In botanical nomenclature
Botanical nomenclature
Botanical nomenclature is the formal, scientific naming of plants. It is related to, but distinct from taxonomy. Plant taxonomy is concerned with grouping and classifying plants; botanical nomenclature then provides names for the results of this process. The starting point for modern botanical...

 it is no longer customary to Latinize
Latinisation (literature)
Latinisation is the practice of rendering a non-Latin name in a Latin style. It is commonly met with for historical personal names, with toponyms, or for the standard binomial nomenclature of the life sciences. It goes further than Romanisation, which is the writing of a word in the Latin alphabet...

 species names (such as Sabine to sabinius and sabiniana) before forming Neo-Latin
New Latin
The term New Latin, or Neo-Latin, is used to describe the Latin language used in original works created between c. 1500 and c. 1900. Among other uses, Latin during this period was employed in scholarly and scientific publications...

 terms, so an orthographical
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...

 correction was proposed from sabiniana to sabineana by some botanists. However the new spelling proposal has not been accepted by the United States Department of Agriculture
United States Department of Agriculture
The United States Department of Agriculture is the United States federal executive department responsible for developing and executing U.S. federal government policy on farming, agriculture, and food...

 (USDA) National Plant Data Center or the University of California's "The Jepson Manual
The Jepson Manual
The Jepson Manual, Higher Plants of California is a collection of identification keys to help biologists identify the vascular plants within the state of California...

". Nor has it been adopted into general use, with the spelling sabiniana used in the pine's endemic range by the University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...

 and state agencies, and in its home country's U.S. federal agencies. The USDA's Germplasm Resources Information Network
Germplasm Resources Information Network
Germplasm Resources Information Network or GRIN is an online software project of National Genetic Resources Program of USDA to provide germplasm information about plants, animals, microbes and invertebrates.-Sub-Projects:...

 (GRIN) database 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 that are already in Latin or Greek, or those that have a well-established latinized form can remain latinized in species epithets, otherwise species epithets have to be orthographically corrected to the proper form. The GRIN database notes that Sabine's last name is not correctable and therefore Pinus sabiniana is the proper name for the species.

See also

  • California montane chaparral and woodlands
    California montane chaparral and woodlands
    The California montane chaparral and woodlands ecoregion covers , including the mountains of the Transverse, Peninsular, and Santa Lucia Ranges of California. It is part of the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome, with cool, wet winters and hot, dry summers...

  • California interior chaparral and woodlands
    California interior chaparral and woodlands
    The California interior chaparral and woodlands ecoregion covers in an elliptical ring around the California Central Valley. It occurs on hills and mountains ranging from to . It is part of the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome, with cool, wet winters and hot, dry summers...


External links

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