Picea koraiensis

Nakai (1919)

Common names

Korean spruce; 종비나무 [Korean]; Ель корейская [Russian]; 红皮云杉 hongpi yunshan [Chinese] (Farjon 1990).

Taxonomic notes

There are two varieties:

• P. koraiensis var. koraiensis. Syn. P. intercedens Nakai 1941, P. koraiensis Nakai var. intercedens (Nakai) Y.L. Chou 1986.
• P. koraiensis var. pungsanensis (Uyeki ex Nakai) Farjon 1990. Syn. P. pungsanensis Uyeki ex Nakai 1941.

Molecular analyses by Ran et al. (2006) and Lockwood et al. (2013) concur in placing P. koraiensis in a clade with P. asperata, P. crassifolia, P. meyeri and P. retroflexa. Shao et al. (2019) place it, with high confidence, sister to a clade of those four species. These species are conveniently united by a simple, obvious character: all have quadrangular needles, while other eastern Asian spruces have laterally or dorsiventrally flattened needles. A few other taxa also belong to this group, including the P. abies-P. obovata complex and the Japanese spruces, P. glehnii, P. koyamae and P. torano. Based on geographic proximity, introgressive hybridization with P. obovata is likely, but has not yet been described. Nakai described three species now united under P. koraiensis, also including P. intercedens (now synonymous with the type) and P. pungsanenis (now treated as a variety), both in 1941.

Description

Trees to 30 m tall and 80 cm dbh, typically with a single straight round trunk and a pyramidal or conical crown. Bark rough, scaly, longitudinally fissured, brown aging to dark gray-brown. Twigs slender, firm, pale yellowish or reddish brown, aging gray-brown, ridged and grooved, glabrous (rarely, pubescent); pulvini small (1 mm), at 45-60° to shoot axis, darker. Vegetative buds ovoid-conical, 6-8 × 3.5-5 mm, resinous; bud scales triangular-ovate, reddish brown. Leaves glaucous green, spreading radially, directed slightly forward, parted below shoot, 12-25 × 1.5-1.8 mm, straight or curved, transversely broad-rhombic in cross section; apex acute or obtuse; ca. 4 lines of stomata on each face. Pollen cones axillary, crowded near ends of shoots, 15-25 mm long, yellow. Seed cones terminal, erect, later becoming pendulous, sessile, ovoid-oblong or short-cylindrical; 4-8 × 2.5-4 cm when open, green or purplish green ripening to light orange-brown or dull brown. Seed scales obovate-oblong to ellipsoid, slightly convex, 13-19 × 11-16 mm at mid-cone; smooth, slightly striated; upper margin entire or erose-denticulate, obtuse, rounded or truncate; dark brown. Bracts rudimentary, entirely included. Seeds ovoid-conical, 3-4 × 2-2.5 mm, dark brown, with a 12-16 mm pale yellow, transparent wing (Farjon 2010). See García Esteban et al. (2004) for a detailed characterization of the wood anatomy.

The type variety has short-cylindrical seed cones with thick, obovate-oblong seed scales having an entire, rounded or obtuse upper margin. Var. pungsanensis has ovoid-oblong seed cones with thin, obovate-ellipsoid or obtrullate seed scales having an erose-denticulate upper margin (Farjon 2010).

Distribution and Ecology

China: Jilin (Changbai Shan), North Korea (mainly along the Yalu River), and Russia (on the Ussuri River) (Farjon 1990). In Russia only in southernmost Ussuriland, very rare (Vladimir Dinets e-mail 1998.01.02). Var. pungsanensis is endemic to Mount Pung-San in North Korea (Farjon 2010).

Remarkable Specimens

No data as of 2025.01.23.

Ethnobotany

No data as of 2025.01.23.

Observations

No data as of 2025.01.23.

Remarks

The epithet refers to Korea, and the epithet pungsanensis refers to Mount Pung-San in North Korea.

Citations

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.

Lockwood, Jared D., Jelena M. Aleksic, Jiabin Zou, Jing Wang, Jianquan Liu, and Susanne S. Renner. 2013. A new phylogeny for the genus Picea from plastid, mitochondrial, and nuclear sequences. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 69:717-727.

Nakai, S. 1919. Notulae ad Plantas Japoniae et Koreae XXI. Botanical Magazine Tokyo 33:195. Available: Biodiversity Heritage Library, accessed 2025.01.23.

Shao, Cheng-Cheng, Ting-Ting Shen, Wei-Tao Jin, Han-Jie Mao, Jin-Hua Ran, and Xiao-Quan Wang. 2019. Phylotranscriptomics resolves interspecific relationships and indicates multiple historical out-of-North America dispersals through the Bering Land Bridge for the genus Picea (Pinaceae). Molecular phylogenetics and evolution 141: 106610.

See also