POWO has several photos of the species in habitat.
Larix speciosa
Burmese larch, Nujiang larch, 怒江红杉 nujiang hongshan [Chinese].
Synonymy:
This is a member of the south Asian clade of Larix. It was described as a species in 1975 and widely accepted as such in China, but Farjon (1990) reduced it to a variety and this was widely accepted by European and North American authors. However, detailed molecular analysis of all Larix species indicates with high confidence that L. griffithii var. speciosa is at best distantly related to L. griffithii and warrants treatment at species rank. It belongs to the Hengduan Mountains clade and is sister to the two other species of that region, L. mastersiana and L. potaninii (Qiu et al. 2024).
Trees to 25 m tall. Bark dark red-brown, fissured, scaly. Twigs pendulous, initially purplish brown or brown, occasionally glaucous, glabrous; short shoots stout, 6-8 mm in diameter with several rings of revolute bud scales. Winter buds red- or purple-brown, ovoid or conical. Leaves oblanceolate-linear, 25-55 × 1.5-2 mm, flat or keeled toward base adaxially, keeled abaxially, stomatal lines on abaxial surface. Seed cones borne on a 5-7 mm peduncle, maturing red- or purple-brown, cylindric, 7-9 × 2-3 cm. Seed scales ca. 100, obovate-oblong or suboblong, 12-15 × 8-9 mm at mid-cone, abaxially dense-pubescent and slightly warty with a truncate to emarginate apex. Bracts exserted, lanceolate, obliquely recurved, 3.5-4.5 mm at widest part, apex tapered. Seeds pale gray, with irregular yellow-brown spots, obliquely ovoid, ca. 5 mm; wing 5-7 mm. Pollination Apr-May, seed maturity Sep-Oct (Wu and Raven 1999).
China: SE Xizang and NW Yunnan; N Myanmar, at elevations of 2600-4000 m (Wu and Raven 1999). Current occurrence in Myanmar is uncertain as political unrest has long prevented much botanical exploration in the area, but samples were collected in 1925 (GBIF 2025). Sampling described by Fan et al. (2010) mentions dense bamboo thickets (Fargesua spp.) dominating the forest understory. They also describe this as a shade-intolerant early-seral species that comes in on well-drained sites in the aftermath of fire. Climate modeling indicates the distribution of this species is most strongly controlled by annual temperature range and by precipitation in the driest month. When considered in the light of climate change scenarios, there is a relatively low likelihood of significant future changes in species distribution, with potential small range expansion in the near term (2040-2060) and small range contraction in the longer term (2080-2100) (Song et al. 2004, An et al. 2023).
In 2011 the IUCN assessed this species as "Near Threatened" based on the rather optimistic assumption that it "has a wider distribution than is currently known"; yet the same assessment states "No reasonable estimates are available for its extent of occurrence or its area of occupancy" (Farjon 2013).
Fan et al. (2010) collected a 595-year tree-ring chronology, ending in 2004, based on living trees. Yue et al. (2024) describe another chronology, also presumably based on living trees, that covers the period from about 1390 to about 2010, suggesting the presence of living trees up to 720 years old.
Larix speciosa has been widely used in dendrochronology, primarily in climate studies (e.g. Fan et al. 2010, Deng et al. 2022).
No data as of 2025.02.01.
The epithet speciosa means "beautiful".
An, Xiu, Tousheng Huang, Huayong Zhang, Junjie Yue, and Bingjian Zhao. 2023. Prediction of potential distribution patterns of three Larix species on Qinghai-Tibet Plateau under future climate scenarios. Forests 14(5):1058.
Cheng, W.C. and L. K. Fu. 1975. Species novae in Gymnospermae Sinicae. Acta Phytotaxonomica Sinica 13(4):84. Available online at the Journal of Systematics and Evolution.
Deng, Guofu, Mingqi Li, Zhixin Hao, and Xuemei Shao. 2022. Responses to Climate Change of Maximum Latewood Density from Larix speciosa Cheng et Law and Abies delavayi Franch. in the Northwest of Yunnan Province, China. Forests 13(5):720.
Fan, Ze-Xin, Achim Bräuning, Qin-Hua Tian, Bao Yang, and Kun-Fang Cao. 2010. Tree ring recorded May–August temperature variations since AD 1585 in the Gaoligong Mountains, southeastern Tibetan Plateau. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 296(1-2):94-102.
Farjon, Aljos. 1990. Pinaceae: drawings and descriptions of the genera Abies, Cedrus, Pseudolarix, Keteleeria, Nothotsuga, Tsuga, Cathaya, Pseudotsuga, Larix and Picea. Königstein: Koeltz Scientific Books.
Farjon, Aljos. 2013. Larix griffithii var. speciosa. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2013: e.T34163A2848994. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2013-1.RLTS.T34163A2848994.en, accessed on 2025.01.31.
Qiu, Xiu-Fei, Yan-Yan Liu, Ge Wu, Cong-Hui Xu, Xin-Quan Liu, Xiao-Yan Xiang, Xiao-Xin Wei, and Xiao-Quan Wang. 2024. Phylogenomic analyses shed new light on the spatiotemporal evolution of global larches: implications for the dynamics of boreal forests. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 202:108240. doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2024.108240.
Song, Minghua, Caiping Zhou, and Hua Ouyang. 2004. Distributions of dominant tree species on the Tibetan Plateau under current and future climate scenarios. Mountain Research and Development 24(2):166-173.
Yue, Weipeng, Feng Chen, Nicole K. Davi, Heli Zhang, Youping Chen, Xiaoen Zhao, and Zhihong Gao. 2024. Little Ice Age cooling in the western Hengduan Mountains, China: A 600-year warm-season temperature reconstruction from tree rings." Climate Dynamics 62, no. 1 (2024): 773-790.
Last Modified 2025-01-31
Back to top