Podocarpus deflexus
"Small tree, 5-10 m tall, to 10 cm diam. Foliage buds c. 3 mm long but with the primary budscales up to 12 mm long and curling sharply outward with blunt1y rounded apices, the secondary scales much shorter, broader, and rounded. Juvenile leaves up to 26 by 1.2-1.5 cm. Adult leaves linear to linear-lanceolate, 11-22 cm by 8-10(-13) mm, acute or slightly rounded at the apex, narrowing gradually more or less to a petiole, cuticle thick, often with five vascular resin canals, sharply bent at the base so as to hang downward, midrib above 0.4 mm high and 1 mm broad with indistinct margins, midrib beneath drying to a channel below. Pollen cones in groups of three, sessile or with a 2 mm peduncle. Primary pollen cone budscales 2 mm wide. Receptacle formed by two fertile bracts and a third shorter sterile bract crowded more or less to one side between the other two. Seed 11-12 by 6-8 mm.
"A rather distinctive species, its large smooth leaves and large fruit resembling among others P. rumphii and P. salomoniensis in other sections of the genus but differing in the key characters of those sections. This species, unlike most of the genus, appears to be monoecious inasmuch as a random field inspection of about a dozen trees showed every single one to bear male buds (fruiting specimens have been collected at a different time of year)" (de Laubenfels 1988).
Indonesia: Sumatra and Malaysia: Peninsular region. "Rising above and locally dominant in dwarf mountain scrub, 1500-2100 m" (de Laubenfels 1988).
The IUCN reports that this species is in decline. It is facing a very high risk of extinction in the wild due to ongoing declines in population size, caused primarily by past and ongoing loss of habitat within a geographic range that is already very limited and severely fragmented.
The species account at Threatened Conifers of the World.
Gray, Netta E. 1958. A Taxonomic Revision of Podocarpus, XI. The South Pacific Species of Section Podocarpus, Subsection B. Journal of the Arnold Arboretum 39:450. Available: Biodiversity Heritage Library, accessed 2023.01.08.
Last Modified 2023-02-26
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