Piñon Pinecone

In the desert Southwest, piñon (also pinyon) pine trees are ubiquitous from around 4000 feet above sea level to around 5000 feet. This image is a piñon pinecone with the pine nuts or piñons ripe and ready to eat. I used to eat these more when I was a lot younger. They are sort-of pricey to buy outside of the areas where they are harvested.

Here is a short explanation about these mid-sized trees from Wikipedia:

The pinyon or piñon pine group grows in the southwestern United States, especially in New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah. The trees yield edible nuts, which are a staple of the Native Americans, and still widely eaten as a snack and as an ingredient in New Mexican cuisine. The name comes from the Spanish pino piñonero, a name used for both the American varieties and the stone pine common in Spain, which also produces edible pine nuts typical of Mediterranean cuisine. Harvesting techniques of the prehistoric Indians are still being used to today to collect the pinyon seeds for personal use or for commercialization. The pinyon nut or seed is high in fats and calories. 

Pinyon wood, especially when burned, has a distinctive fragrance, making it a common wood to burn in chimineas. The pinyon pine trees are also known to influence the soil in which they grow by increasing concentrations of both macronutrients and micronutrients.

If you have spent any time at all on the Colorado Plateau, you will have seen forests of these trees. There are eight different species of the true piñon or Pinus:

• Pinus cembroides – Mexican pinyon
• Pinus orizabensis – Orizaba pinyon
• Pinus johannis – Johann's pinyon (includes P. discolor – border pinyon)
• Pinus culminicola – Potosi pinyon
• Pinus remota – Texas pinyon or papershell pinyon
• Pinus edulis – two-needle piñon or Colorado pinyon
• Pinus monophylla – single-leaf pinyon
• Pinus quadrifolia – Parry pinyon (includes P. juarezensis).

These additional Mexican species are also related and mostly called pinyons:

• Pinus rzedowskii – Rzedowski's pine
• Pinus pinceana – weeping pinyon
• Pinus maximartinezii – big-cone pinyon
• Pinus nelsonii – Nelson's pinyon

The three bristlecone pine species of the high mountains of the southwestern United States, and the lacebark pines of Asia are closely related to the pinyon pines.