CERRILLOS HILLS HISTORIC PARK

The medicinal or remedio uses referenced in this text are solely to inform the reader of the traditional and historical folkways of the people of New Mexico. This information is not medical advice. Always consult your physician before using any medicinal product.

Low to the ground, rounded crown, 15 feet tall, the piñon ("pinyon") is a very slow-growing tree, taking nearly 200 years to produce a 1-foot diameter trunk. An old piñon may be more than 500 years old, and may live as long as 1,000 years. In New Mexico they are found at elevations of between 5,000 and 7,000 feet.

The name comes from the 1500s when the Spanish explorers dubbed the tree pino piñonero, or "nut-bearing pine".



Needles are short (1.2 to 2 inches) and practically always clustered in twos. The shiny cones, which usually grow singly at the ends of branchlets, open widely as they dry, releasing around two dozen thin-shelled wingless seeds. The bark is dark and rough.

If the winter-spring is wet, the piñon will produce a good crop of piñones (piñon nuts) the following year between September and October, an event that happens about every 6 years. Piñons reproduce by seed only, and it takes about 25 years for a tree to begin producing seedcones. At around 75 to 100 years of age the production of seedcones diminishes.

In order to germinate, piñon seeds must be buried 0.8- to 1.2-inches deep in soil or litter. Squirrels, nuthatches, and Piñon, Scrub and Stellar's jays all play a major role in piñon seed dispersal by means of their forgotten seed caches.










A young piñon tree (front) grows from the leaf litter at the base of an older juniper (back).


Piñon seedlings, which may grow 2 inches per year, prefer a nurse plant, and you will often see a piñon seemingly growing out of the base of a juniper. Piñons share the land with Junipers but can also be found at higher elevations, and are the climax species of the P-J Forest. They grow faster than the juniper and live longer. Given enough time and the correct environment they are the surviving species.

Piñon nuts are second in value only to pecans in the US harvest of uncultivated nuts. Over one million pounds yearly are gathered, and almost all are from P. edulis. This native production must compete with imports from several species of stone pines of China, Italy, and Iberia, which when properly labeled are identified as pignolia.

New Mexico's 1987 Piñon Nut Act prohibits restaurants and retailers from listing piñon nuts as an ingredient unless they are from either P. edulis or P. monophylla. P. monophylla, the closely-related singleleaf piñon, is more common in the southwestern quadrant of the state.

It is said that for ancestral Native Americans in a good year the food value of the piñon nut - it contains all twenty amino acids that make complete protein, and about 3,000 calories per pound - exceeded that from all other sources. Piñon wood was preferred for the production of charcoal ( carbóna), used for among other things the smelting of ores. The resin of the piñon is used for glue (tools, turquoise jewelry), medicinally as an antiseptic and cold remedy. A tea made from piñon pitch ( trementina de piñon) is used to treat phlegm and urinary infections, including syphilis.

Navajo tradition identifies piñones as the earliest food of the ancient ones, and for Santa Clara Pueblo the piñon is regarded as the most ancient of all trees.

This tree is the answer to the question, 'What is the state tree of New Mexico?'

Low to the ground, the juniper is a native perennial evergreen tree of many trunks, a rounded crown, and commonly 7- to 13-feet tall when mature. It is found in New Mexico at elevations ranging from 3,000 feet to 7,000 feet. The juniper's root system has nearly the same dimensions as the tree; it is well adapted for survival in dry climates. Juniper's growth rate is very dependent upon environmental conditions but by any measure is slow, ranging from 6 inches per decade to 4 feet per decade. It has the ability to stop growth during times of drought and resume growth when times are better.

It has tiny, yellowish-green scale-like aromatic leaves in alternate pairs. The female tree has hard, bluish, pea- like berries - 0.2 inch diameter - containing one seed. From the male trees summertime winds may stir up great clouds of yellow pollen, one of the principal ingredients of New Mexico's "pollen season". The juniper has spread beyond its historic natural habitat following overgrazing.















One-seed Juniper can represent up to 20% of the diet of mule deer and a significant portion of the diet for pronghorn and elk. The berries are a very important food source for some birds. Browsing on juniper by domestic livestock, more likely to occur during bad times, may generate abortions.

Juniper seeds that have been stored for 20 years were shown to be 50% viable; half of them were still good. Only an estimated 3% of juniper seeds ever reach seedling stage.

Perhaps more widely used by ancestral Native Americans than any other plant, the juniper is still a favorite wood for construction (fenceposts and poles, and at one time railroad ties and mine timbers) and for fuel. The berries, raw or stewed, were a food staple that was particularly important in times of famine.

Now juniper berries are used mostly to season meats and stews. Juniper berry tea is a diuretic and leaf tea is prescribed for various internal disorders. Juniper sprig tea is associated with birth, drunk at birth and used to bathe both mother and child. At Cochiti a powder made of the inner bark has been used to treat earaches.

A yellow-orange parasitic plant found in dense clusters on the outer limbs of juniper trees. The mistletoe berries have some food value, are used for stomach-ache, and are said to prevent baldness.

Some people believe infatuation is brought on by utilizing this mistletoe, and the comment to someone head-over-heels for someone else might be, "Te dio bellota."

The Coyote Willow is a short-lived tree, 6 to 12 feet tall, found in thickets in very wet soil along watercourses at lower elevations. Numerous slender trunks grow from the same root system. Sexual reproduction is by catkins, found on separate male and female trees, but reproduction by root suckers is very common. The Coyote willow has narrow linear leaves with a slightly silvery undersurface.

Willows are a "pioneer" species -- among the first to arrive after the soil is disturbed -- and in the normal course are eventually replaced by other trees like cottonwoods. Repeated flooding helps willows to persist. Willows are excellent indicators of the biologic health of a riparian ecosystem and are extremely important in the study of ecology.

In the old days young willow stems were the preferred material (along with yucca) for making coiled baskets. Willow stems were also used as thatch for roofs, as fire sticks (twirled to generate a fire), and possibly also as prayer sticks. Willow leaves or de-barked twigs are still chewed to treat sore gums. Willow bark is the universal pain reliever; it contains salicin (note the willow genus is Salix) which when ingested breaks down into salicylic acid - aspirin!

The range of this willow tree extends into northern Canada where it is a favorite food of the moose.

The Spanish word for a willow thicket was mimbres; hence the Rio Mimbres, and from that the Mimbres culture.

These sometimes giant deciduous (loses its leaves in winter) hardwood trees are reliable indicators of present or past watercourses. Cottonwoods are "pioneer" plants -- among the first to arrive after the earth has been disturbed.

The Fremont, the local species of cottonwood for which the Spanish name ALAMO is most often applied, may be up to 110 feet tall and 10 feet in diameter, and live nearly 130 years. It is inundation and siltation tolerant, and it is found often in association with Coyote willows. It is both a "pioneer" and a "climax" plant -- the first to arrive and the ultimate survivor after everything has reached maturity. It is the big tree of the creeks and bosques (riverine forest). The Fremont has 2-inch triangular (deltoid) leaves, and a root system that may extend downward over 16 feet.

The Narrowleaf Cottonwood, Álamo Sauco - rarely more than 60 feet tall with a 2-foot diameter trunk - with 3-inch by ¾-inch willowlike leaves, finely serrated and sticky on the underside, is found at higher elevations (6200 to 7700 feet in New Mexico) also along streams. Unlike the willow, with which it is often found, the young bark and branches of the Narrowleaf Cottonwood are whitish. Next year's leaf buds are brown and shiny, and when touched ooze a yellowish sticky resinous substance. When cut for lumber Narrowleaf Cottonwood warps easily and is susceptible to decay. The Narrowleaf is not a climax species and needs periodic flooding or fire to persist.

The Narrowleaf and Fremont cottonwoods are known to hybridize (interbreed) producing a variety called P. hinkleyana.

Like its near relative, the aspen, the leaves of the cottonwood have a "petiole" (leaf stem) which is flattened at right angles relative to the flat surface of the leaf, allowing the slightest breeze to set the leaves in motion. The leaves may be browsed by rabbits or deer, and the catkins may be eaten by quail or grouse.

The flowers of the cottonwood, called catkins, which appear in early spring - March through May - before the leaves, may be male or female. The 1.25- to 3.25- inch long male catkin is crowded with stamens with dark red antlers. The 4- to 5-inch female catkin develops into a string of angular bead-like capsules each containing many tiny seeds in tufts of white hairs. The female catkin is so abundant that it may cover the ground around the tree with a cottony white carpet of seeds. The seeds are viable for about 5 weeks; but only 3 days if wet. Seedling root growth may be up to a half inch per day in good conditions, such as on sunlit sandy soil kept moist by spring flooding.

Cottonwoods will not tolerate shade, and seedlings do not fare well in the company of faster growing trees such as Saltcedar and Russian Olive.

A bitter tea of cottonwood bark is taken for pain, internal or external. Leaf tea is for urinary problems, and leaves may be applied directly to abrasions. For burns and boils the ashes of cottonwood bark are mixed with lemon juice and corn meal and applied directly. Catkins are an ingredient in stews, and used to be eaten raw. Narrowleaf Cottonwood is the favorite wood for making large drums such as Cochiti Pueblo is famous for. The trunk core is susceptible to rot and the logs are often easily hollowed. Since the wood burns hot and clean, it is also a favorite choice for firing clay pots the traditional way.

One measure of the importance of alamo trees to New Mexicans (as indicators of water and providers of shade and materials) is the widespread use of it in place names; Alamogordo, Los Alamos, Alameda, Alamo, and Alamilla.

A low shrub to medium-size deciduous (loses its leaves during winter) tree with deeply-lobed leaves, thin gray-brown bark, and small - ¾-inch thick - scaly-capped nuts called acorns. Gambel Oaks typically grow from 2 to 20 feet tall in dense many-trunked thickets where they spread by underground runners, but a big separate tree may be as tall as 50 feet, and may live up to 120 years. They prosper in the rich soil of valley bottoms.

The struggle for water and nutrients: There are three separate trees in this picture. The original tree is the juniper on the left side. A younger but taller piñon (behind and to the right) and a Gambel Oak (front right, and leafless in February) are growing from the juniper's leaf litter.

It flowers in April and May. Male and female catkins (reproductive clusters) appear on the same trees. Acorns ripen in August through September. During extremely dry years the tree may not develop leaves at all.

Gambel Oak is the most common of the many varieties of oak in the area but since oaks hybridize easily exact identification is often a challenge.

Gambel oak acorns are a major food source for native turkeys and pigeons, and are common forage for deer and elk. Gambel Oak acorns are sweet and unusually low in tannin (the bitter component that requires most acorn meal to be leached for hours in water before being eaten), and they can be consumed raw with no ill effects. The tannin content of the oak, however, rises after a burn, and the content in young foliage turned black by freezing is so high it is regarded as extremely toxic.

The acorns have been heavily utilized since archaic times. They are collected in the autumn and ground to make protein-rich gruels and cakes. Acorns (and beans) are high in the essential amino acid lysine, which is lacking in the main ancestral food source, corn (maize), and thereby in the early days nutritionally very important. The strong wood was popular for sticks, clubs, tool handles, and archery bows.

Note the Latin name for this tree. An important family in Spain was once given the white oak [Latin; albus querqus] as its symbol, and now a town in New Mexico bears that name.

This oak likes dry environments all over the American west, from 4,000- to 10,000-feet elevation. The leaves are shiny and blue-green, and slightly crinkled.

A native, deciduous, thicket-forming small tree or shrub that may occasionally reach over 20 feet in height, the Chokecherry has gray-brown bark with lens-shaped reddish-brown markings. The smooth, reddish, hairy twigs have a definite acrid odor when broken. The roots of the Chokecherry may extend up to 35 feet horizontally and to a depth of 6 feet. It is found in moist canyons and along streams where it is important to wildlife (food and habitat) and as watershed protection, but is, however, intolerant of poor drainage.

April through June: The elongated - 2-inch to 6-inch long - clusters of small white 5-petaled flowers hanging downward (such clusters are called "glabrous racemes") with a strong, sweet almondlike fragrance, are a favorite food of birds and squirrels. Later in the year, if the critters don't get them first, you will see clusters of purple-black single-seed cherries.

Chokecherry is moderately palatable to all classes of livestock, but because it contains prunacin, which breaks down to highly-toxic cyanide (HCN), overconsumption of chokecherry by livestock can be lethal.

Chokecherry seed germination rates have been shown to improve if a bird or mammal first passes the seed through its digestive system.

Archaeological evidence indicates that in the old days chokecherries were an important food source. The strong cherry wood was used for bows, and its bark and roots for cough medicine and the treatment of wounds. Preparations of chokecherry bark are available today at commercial health food stores. The astringent berry is used in many ways as food, but is probably most palatable when dried, which concentrates the sugars. It is widely used in jams and jellies.

The chokecherry is an approved US Forest Service revegetation species for wildlife habitat, and mine spoils and other soil stabilization, from which use it commonly escapes to form roadside thickets.

Capulín, 'cherry' in Spanish, was the name given to a canyon in nearby Bandelier National Monument because of the presence of these trees.

A large intruder many-branched deciduous shrub or tree, the New Mexico Olive may grow to be 12 feet high and even slightly wider. New Mexico Olive needs little water to survive and is a popular xeriscape (dry gardening) plant.

The bark is white. Inconspicuous lateral clusters of small yellow-green flowers appear in spring before the light gray-green leaves come out. The leaves, with "serrulate" (toothed) margins, are arranged in opposition. The leaves turn bright yellow in the fall.

Later in the season clusters of 3-to-7 showy, purple-to-black, ellipsoid half-inch-long fruits ("drupe") appear, but both male and female trees must be present for the berries to form.

New Mexico Olive is known to be browsed by deer.

The New Mexico Locust is a native, rhizomatous, small tree -- commonly 3- to 26-feet tall, with a 4- to 8-inch diameter trunk. It prefers stream sides, cool canyons, and rocky slopes (talus slopes) where it grows in thickets. It is smaller than other locusts, has a dense crown, many stout spiny branches, and thin bark. 15 to 21 smooth-margined leaflets appear on the noticeably hairy leaf stems in mid-spring, and at the base of each leaf stem is a pair of dark reddish-brown spines.

From April to July the tree produces a great number of drooping, dense-clustered spikes of pink-to-purple flowers, followed a short time later by 3- to 4-inch long seed pods (legumes) containing several small dark brown seeds that ripen in September and October and disperse from September to December.

The New Mexico Locust also reproduces from stumps, rootcrowns, and by runners ("rhizomes").

You may find the term Uña de Gato used as well for Acacia greggii and the unrelated exotic South American spiney vine, Uncaria tomentosa.

This Old World intruder, originally imported into the western US in the early 1800s as an oranmental and a windbreak, is now sometimes the dominant tree along local arroyos and streams. It is a small deciduous tree (loses its leaves during the winter) with very long tap roots, up to 30 feet, growing in dense thickets 6 to 26 feet high. Saltcedar is capable of stopping growth in times of drought, and it can survive inundation for up to 3 months, can tolerate alkali conditions very well, but cannot survive if the water table drops below the root zone. It may live to be 100 years old.

The stem is slender and tough, and tiny gray-green leaves are arrayed overlapping scale-like along it. Flower stems branch everywhere off the leaf stems, and bloom with a myriad of tiny pink flowers. The capsule releases thousands of tiny hair- tufted seeds that germinate quickly if they fall to ground that is consistently moist. One tree can produce 600,000 seeds in a single year. The seeds are viable for only a few weeks. Seedlings require saturated soil for the first several weeks. Severed shoots and stems readily root in moist soil, but once dry they tend to lose this ability.

Saltcedar is unpalatable to livestock but is a major food source for the Blacktailed jackrabbit.

This tree is famous for transpiration; for consuming groundwater. It has a very high leaf area index and can dry up wetlands, lower water tables, and reduce water yield of riparian areas. Much like Russian Olive, with which it is often associated, Saltcedar is less valuable than native riparian plants, outcompetes with them, and regularly drives them out of the local ecosystem.

Saltcedar is a "pioneer" species, being among the first to appear after the soil has been disturbed, but unlike other pioneer species it often monopolizes the locality eventually producing pure stands of Saltcedar.

The Russian Olive, called in French 'Olivier de Boheme', is a small thorny tree commonly 12- to 45-feet tall. This intruder from Eurasia, brought to the US in the late 1800s, loves low, moist, sandy, slightly alkaline soil, where with its deep taproot and well-developed lateral root system it grows in thickets.

The leaves are lanceolate (like a spear point) and nearly 2 inches long, alternating on the sides of the stem -- green on top and silvery below -- and single 1- to 2-inch long spines may be present at the axil (joint of stem and leaf sprig). The stems, buds and leaves have a dense covering of silvery-to-brown scales. Aromatic, creamy-yellow flowers appear in midsummer. The silvery yellow- to-brown pea-sized olives (drupes) are found at the end of a short stem singly or in pairs on either side of the main stem. Seeds are the primary means of reproduction. The seeds remain viable for up to 3 years.

The Russian Olive is capable of fixing nitrogen in its roots and so can grow quite well in bare, sandy soil.

Over fifty species of birds and mammals are shown to consume the olive fruit, and the foliage is sometimes browsed by deer and livestock.

The Russian Olive is often found in association with Saltcedar and Coyote Willow. Like Saltcedar, Russian Olive is known for being an inferior wildlife habitat compared to native vegetation, and for outcompeting native species, like cottonwood, and taking over the local ecosystem. More species of land birds occur in native, cottonwood-dominated riparian areas than in Russian olive stands. Most lowland riparian species, particularly hole- nesting species, are absent from Russian olive stands, and about a third of riparian breeding bird species are negatively affected by habitat loss due to Russian olives.