Editing Pinus remota (section)

==The papershell piñón and Cabeza de Vaca==
Pinus remota has importance in determining the route of Spanish explorer [[Cabeza de Vaca]], the first European to explore [[Texas]] and the northern part of [[Mexico]]. Writing an account of his experiences, Cabeza de Vaca said that in 1535 the [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Indians]] of the region through which he was passing gave him and his companions pine nuts to eat which were "better than those of Castile [Spain], because they have very thin shells."<ref>{{cite journal | last = Olson | first = Donald W. | display-authors=etal | title = Piñon Pines and the Route of Cabeza de Vaca | journal = Southwestern Historical Quarterly | date = October 1997 | page = 177 }}</ref>
[[File:Expedition Cabeza de Vaca Karte.png|thumb|right|250px|Route of Cabeza de Vaca, 1528-1536, as proposed by Alex D. Krieger.]]
In attempting to determine the route followed by Cabeza de Vaca from near the area of [[Galveston, Texas]] on the [[Gulf of Mexico]] to the [[Pacific Ocean]] coast of Mexico, several scholars, notably Cleve Hallenbeck in 1940, believed that the statement by Cabeza de Vaca referred to the seeds of [[Pinus edulis]], the Colorado piñón, which is found in the mountains of southern New Mexico and adjacent Texas—but not in northeastern Mexico.  The Mexican piñón ([[Pinus cembroides]]) found in Mexico has thick shells, rather than the thin shells described by Cabeza de Vaca. Therefore, Hallenbeck concluded on the basis of the range of piñón species that Cabeza de Vaca had traversed Texas westward from near Galveston to southernmost New Mexico and crossed the [[Rio Grande]] river near [[El Paso, Texas]].

To the contrary, Alex D. Krieger in a [[doctoral dissertation]] (1961) proposed instead that Cabeza De Vaca had traversed the coast of Texas, crossed the [[Rio Grande]] into Mexico and turned northwest, passing near present-day [[Monclova, Mexico]] and proceeding through Mexico to meet the Rio Grande again near present-day [[Presidio, Texas]].<ref>Chipman, Donald E. "In Search of Cabeza de Vaca's Route across Texas: An Historiographical Survey". (Oct 1987) ''Southwestern Historical Quarterly'', http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/colonial/cabezadevaca.pdf, accessed 28 July 2016</ref> Krieger's trans-Mexican route for Cabeza de Vaca was dismissed by proponents of a trans-Texas route because no piñón with thin shelled seeds was known to be native to northern Mexico.<ref>Olson, et al., pp 178-180</ref>

However, in 1966, botanist [[Elbert L. Little]] first described a subspecies of the Mexican piñón with "thin shelled seeds" and in 1979 the thin-shelled piñón was proposed to be considered as a separate species with the name ''Pinus remota'' or papershell piñón.  In 1996, scholars traveled to the Monclova, Mexico area and collected specimens of the papershell piñón, thus proving that Cabeza de Vaca might have encountered thin-shelled piñón seeds in Mexico as well as in Texas. The trans-Mexico route of Cabeza de Vaca, proposed by Krieger, now has the support of many scholars.<ref>Dolan et al., pp. 184-186</ref>