The piñon pine (Pinus edulis) is a small to medium size tree, reaching 3.0–6.1 metres (10–20 ft) tall and with a trunk diameter of up to 80 centimetres (31 in), rarely more.

Its growth is "at an almost inconceivably slow rate" growing only 1.8 meters (6 ft) in one hundred years under good conditions.

fallax (see description under Pinus monophylla) for several hundred kilometers along the Mogollon Rim of central Arizona and the Grand Canyon resulting in trees with both single- and two-needled fascicles on each branch.

Prominent aromatic compounds from each portion of the tree include α-pinene, sabinene, β-pinene, δ-3-carene, β-phellandrene, ethyl octanoate, longifolene, and germacrene D.[8] Colorado pinyon was described by George Engelmann in 1848 from collections made near Santa Fe, New Mexico on Alexander William Doniphan's expedition to northern Mexico in 1846 and 1847.

There is one known example of a Colorado pinyon growing amongst Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmannii) and limber pine (Pinus flexilis) at nearly 3,170 m (10,400 ft) on Kendrick Peak in the Kaibab National Forest of northern Arizona.

[12] Archaeologist Harold S. Gladwin described pit-houses constructed by southwestern Native Americans c. 400–900 CE; these were fortified with posts made from Pinyon trunks and coated with mud.