ABSTRACT

This chapter provides information on uses, folk medicine, chemistry, germplasm, distribution, ecology, cultivation, harvesting, yields, energy, and biotic factors of Parry's pine-nut. Nuts (seeds), which are rich in proteins, are used as an important food supply by Mexicans and Indians, in Lower California especially. According to Hartwell, the ointment derived from the pitch is said to be a folk remedy for external cancers. James A. Duke and Wain report Parry's pine-nut to be a folk remedy for cancer. Natives usually collect nuts from the ground after cones have opened, or they beat nuts loose from cones with long poles. Nut-collectors, who often collect the nuts for recreation and then sell them to local groceries, break off cone-bearing branches, or tear green cones loose with garden rakes, causing serious damage to trees, thus lowering their productivity. Nuts have good keeping qualities and unshelled pinon nuts can be stored for 3 years without becoming rancid.