Mexican pinyon pine belongs on a dry mountainside in the American Southwest, not in a Spokane arboretum with a state-record willow and Chinese dawn redwoods for neighbours. The city's Heritage Tree Register names this one among the largest of its kind anywhere in Washington, a low, broad-crowned pine spreading more than 40 feet across on a trunk only about 33 feet tall. That shape is the species doing what it always does. Pinus cembroides grows slow and wide rather than tall, built for wind and drought rather than for competing with taller trees for light, which is close to the opposite of everything else growing around it at Finch Arboretum. Only the register has recorded it, and no second account has come forward to confirm the figures or the ranking. Treat "one of the largest in the state" as one institution's claim rather than a settled fact, the same caution due every single-sourced tree on this page. Find it near the willow and the redwoods, a short walk that makes an afternoon of it.
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John A. Finch Arboretum, Spokane, Washington
You can recognise it by its shape: low, broad and wide-crowned rather than tall, a crown spreading more than 40 feet on a trunk only about 33 feet high. It stands in Finch Arboretum, near the state champion willow.
West Spokane, off Sunset Highway; car or city bus. Same site as spk_002 (State Champion White Willow) and spk_003 (First Dawn Redwoods).
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from. The story was written with AI from these sources, and readers who know the tree correct it.
- In the official register: Spokane Heritage Tree Register (City of Spokane Urban Forestry), no. OBJECTID 424, CityandCountyHistoricProp FeatureServer layer 1
- Spokane Heritage Tree Register (services.arcgis.com/3PDwyTturHqnGCu0/arcgis/rest/services/CityandCountyHistoricProp/FeatureServer/1)
- my.spokanecity.org
- services.arcgis.com