piñon pine

Noun

piñon pine (countable and uncountable, plural piñon pines)

1. Any of several species of North American pines in Pinus subsect. Cembroides that bear edible seeds (pine nuts), especially Pinus edulis; the nut pine.
   • The sage and thickets of oak and brakes of alder gave place to piñon pine growing out of rocky soil.1912 January, Zane Grey, chapter 5, in Riders of the Purple Sage […], New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, →OCLC
   • Love said he liked this place because he could see so much from it, and had stopped here many times across the decades, to lean against a piñon pine and sort through the country, like an astronomer with the whole sky above him sorting through the stars.1986, John McPhee, Rising from the Plains; reprinted in Annals of the Former World, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998, page 383

   Synonyms:

   piñon, pinon, pinyon