Hi Lindsey -

I could be wrong, so hopefully someone with more knowledge of Santa Fe will chime in here and correct me, but if I am not mistaken, I thought those pines were Pinion Pines, the official state tree of NM?

I think they are Pinions. Again, however, I could be a mile off...

[I am better with the zone 7 stuff of ABQ than the zone 5 or 6 of our state's capital! :)

Hmm - I didn't think pinon got very tall, maybe 20-30ft max. I think the really big/tall pines around SF are probably ponderosa pines or (not so likely) lodgepole pines. Both can get very large.

I agree with abq bob, they definitely sound more like Ponderosas. Pinyon pines max out around 40 feet tall, usually only in very crowded forest conditions (such as can be seen around Pecos and Rowe, for example). Open-grown individuals are typically much shorter and broadly spreading in their habit.

Basically, there are two Pinus species that I am aware of which have the vanilla scent to their bark... one is the Jeffrey Pine of Southern California, and the other is the wide-ranging Ponderosa. Though the former could probably survive in Santa Fe, I doubt that it is ever grown outside SoCal, and it is considered by some to be just a variant of the Ponderosa anyway. It does differ somewhat however, and the vanilla scent is much more pronounced in the Jeffrey Pine.

So lindseylu, those pines you saw are almost definitely Ponderosas, in which case they should have needles around 8 inches long in clusters of 3. By the way, a person can be easily fooled by this species, especially in cultivation, you'll see a myriad of different variants being grown, many of them with completely different growth forms (short and squat for instance). In any event, they are gorgeous trees. I guess I should go check those individuals out at the courthouse sometime.

Speaking of beautiful Ponderosas, Frijoles Canyon in Bandelier NP is loaded with enormous ones, and just about anyplace in NM around 7,500 feet or so should have some at least.

Cheers,

Chris

Thank you all for the excellent input! I am pretty sure that the Santa Fe trees must be Ponderosas, since I have seen the same type at Bandelier National Park (as Chris mentioned -- thank you!).

Speaking of pinon pines, however, does anyone know if/where in the Albuquerque area they can be purchased for growing? I didn't see any at Alameda Greenhouses but maybe I missed them.

Thanks again! Lindsey :)