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Pinus sabiniana

Pinus sabiniana
Pinus sabiniana.jpg
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Pinophyta
Class: Pinopsida
Order: Pinales
Family: Pinaceae
Genus: Pinus
Subgenus: Pinus
Species: P. sabiniana
Binomial name
Pinus sabiniana
Douglas ex D.Don

Pinus sabiniana (sometimes spelled P. sabineana), with the common names ghost pine,gray pine, California foothill pine, and the more historically and internationally used digger pine, is a pine endemic to California in the United States. It is also known as foothill pine, bull pine, and nut pine.

The Pinus sabiniana tree typically grows to 36–45 feet (11–14 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 (8–12 inches) in length. The seed cones are large and heavy, 12–35 cm (4 3413 34 inches) in length and almost as wide as they are long. When fresh, they weigh from 0.3 to 0.7 kilograms (0.7 to 1.5 lb), rarely over 1 kilogram (2.2 lb). The male cones grow at the base of shoots on the lower branches.

Pinus sabiniana grows at elevations between sea level and 1,200 metres (4,000 ft) and is common in the northern and interior portions of the California Floristic Province. It is found throughout the Sierra Nevada and Coast Ranges foothills that ring the Central, San Joaquin and interior valleys; the Transverse and Peninsular Ranges; and Mojave Desert sky islands. It is adapted to long, hot, dry summers and is found in areas with an unusually wide range of precipitation: from an average of 250 mm (10 in) per year at the edge of the Mojave to 1,780 mm (70 in) in parts of the Sierra Nevada. It prefers rocky, well drained soil, but also grows in serpentine soil and heavy, poorly drained clay soils. 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 characteristic within the California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion in California, providing a sparse overstory above a canopy of the oak woodland.


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