Pinus edulis

The Colorado pinyon or two-needle pinyon's range covers Colorado, southern Wyoming, eastern and central Utah, northern Arizona, New Mexico, and the Guadalupe Mountains in westernmost Texas. The two-needle pinyon's range extends one state further eastward than the single-leaf pinyon (P. monophylla).

The tree is widespread and often abundant in this region, forming extensive open woodlands, usually mixed with junipers in the pinyon-juniper woodland plant community. It grows at moderate altitudes of 1,600–2,400 m and is highly adapted to surviving in near-desert rainfall conditions of 100–160 mm per year.

• It is a small to medium size tree, reaching 10–20 m tall and with a trunk diameter of up to 80 cm.
• Needle-like leaves are in pairs, moderately stout, curved, 3–5.5 cm long, stiff, thick and yellow-green. Branches are in yearly whorls.
• Species is monoecious; male pollen cones are red, cylindrical, in clusters near ends of branches; young females are purplish at branch tips, maturing in 2 years.
• Mature seed cones are small, opening wide after 18 months to drop seeds 1 cm in length, enclosed in shells. They are 30% smaller than the "pine nuts" (Pinus koraiensis) commercially available for cooking, and in the fall, native families particularly go to the bases of pinion trees and gather the nuts off the ground for food. The harvesting limit is 2 lbs per person per day, so bring along the kids!