piñon pine

plural piñon pines

1. countableuncountableAny of several species of North American pines in Pinus subsect. Cembroides that bear edible seeds (pine nuts), especially Pinus edulis; the nut pine.

   He inhaled deeply, smelling piñon pines and sage.

   2001, Eric Nylund, Halo: The Fall of Reach, New York: Del Rey, →ISBN, page 217

   2 more examples

   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