Prb'ly not much difference -- both will be compact & slow-growing. Both need VERY good drainage (drier the better) and full sun. Where are you at? Might sulk or fail in humid climates and/or moisture-retentive soils.

Thanks. I live in middle TN a little south of Nashville. I'm successfully growing SW oaks and pretty sure these will do OK. Worth a try anyway. I guess I'll probably go with the edulis.

Best to plant pinyons on a high, sandy berm (small hill) that will help w/drainage & discourage root-rot.

FWIW the dominant kind in Seattle (USDA 8) is probably C. cembroides, where some plantings had individuals over 30 ft. high about 11 years ago. That might be taken to indicate a superior tractability from this one.

Thanks, everyone.

Cembroides var. remota, papershell pinyon, is the most tolerant of heat and humidity. Very uncommon in cultivation. A few specialty native plant nurseries in texas have it available as a small container plant occasionally.

As for the "best" pinyon here's another nomination from my little collection. Unfortunately, this fuzzy little guy is zone 10 material, maybe 9b. I grew it from seed it's 3 or 4 years old I don't recall

Thanks, Todd. Very nice. Are those under artificial light?

No the bigcone pinyons are outside on porch. I only bring the containers in when we freeze (last year that was twice here in SA. When it got to 32. And once they stayed out when overnight low was 33. we had a very mild winter even by our sub tropical standards. The edulis and remota seedlings, and my larger Johanns pinyon are fully hardy here. Pinyons are great. Since I have several edulis seedlings I'm going to graft scions from maximartinezii and wild remota to them this winter. The former as insurance (I only have two) and the later as a way to get a remote pinyon coNing faster.

All the pinyons are an exercise in patience. The single needled variety is probably slowest. And I think most used to very arid conditions. Regular cembroides is mostly 3 needled remota (which should be a species not a variety or subsp) is almost all 2 needled. And as the common name papershell pinyon implies has very thin shells on the pine nuts. I've seen edulis and remota in native stands many times the later is greener and more lush. And as a young specimen looks like narrow pyramidal christmas tree. Like I said more tolerant of heat and humidity you find them about 2000 ft above sea level, edulis usually twice that high and further west. I'm looking for some of my hiking pics ...

Ahhh...P. maximartinezii...we can grow them here but still easy to kill if overwatered or bad drainage.

Entire species may have derived from a single seed of one of the closely related, also still extant species.

http://www.conifers.org/pi/Pinus_maximartinezii.php