The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 101, July 1997 - April, 1998 Page: 179
574 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Piion Pines and the Route of Cabeza de Vaca
TABLE 2
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MEXICAN PIf~ON
Scientific name: Pinus cembroides
Common name: Mexican pifion
Height: 20o feet to 35 feet tall, occasionally reaching 50 feet tall
Habitat: found at high altitudes, from about 5,ooo feet to 9,00o feet above sea
level
Range: widespread in Mexico, on both the Sierra Madre Occidental and the
Sierra Madre Oriental; found in Texas in Jeff Davis County, Presidio County,
and Brewster County, including stands in Big Bend National Park
Cones: 1 inch to 1'/, inches long
Thickness of shells: 0.020 inch to 0.040 inch (0.5 mm to i.o mm) thick; "thick
hard seed coat" (Perry); "probably have the thickest-shelled nuts of all
pinyons" (Simpson); "vety thick-shelled nuts" and "thick, rockhard shell"
(Lanner); "seeds are hard-shelled thus not easy to eat" (Powell)
SOURCES: Perry, The Pines of Mexico and Central America, 65; BennyJ. Simpson, A Field Guide
to Texas Trees (Houston: Gulf Publishing Co., 1988), 222; Ronald M. Lanner, The Piion
Pine, A Natural and Cultural History (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1981), 6, 113; A.
Michael Powell, Trees & Shrubs of Trans-Pecos Texas (Big Bend National Park: Big Bend
Natural History Association, 1988), 51.
distribution of both Pinus edulis and Pinus cembroides, Cleve Hallenbeck
in 1940 likewise concluded that the "pine nuts mentioned by Niiiez are,
of course, the fruit of the pifion pine, Pinus edulis." In fact, Hallenbeck
went so far as to say that "without the shadow of a doubt it was P. edulis
that he found, and described." Hallenbeck believed that the travelers
must have followed a trans-Texas route and then encountered Pinus
edulis in the Sacramento Mountains of New Mexico.13 Haniel Long, in a
1941 volume titled Pirion Country, agreed with Hallenbeck that Cabeza
de Vaca found Pinus edulis, noting that "NGfiez gives us our first descrip-
tion of the little tree.""4 In his 1961 translation of the Relacidn, Cyclone
Covey also concluded that the text described Pinus edulis found in the
Sacramento range of New Mexico. Covey derived much of his explanato-
ry material from Hallenbeck's book, because he judged that
Hallenbeck's research on Cabeza de Vaca's route "incorporates and
supersedes all previous scholarship on the subject."15
"Hallenbeck, Alvar Ntiez Cabeza de Vaca, 188 (1st quotation), 190 (2nd quotation).
'4Haniel Long, Piion Country (New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1941), 23, 32 (quotation).
' Cyclone Covey (trans. and ed.), Cabeza de Vaca's Adventures an the Unknown Interior of America
(1961; reprinnt, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1983), 8 (quotation), log.1997
179
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 101, July 1997 - April, 1998, periodical, 1998; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117155/m1/231/: accessed May 6, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.