Picea aurantiaca
Orange spruce, 白皮云杉 baipi yunshan (lit. whitebark spruce) [Chinese]; since it has commonly been treated as a variety of Picea asperata, the name "dragon spruce" is also common in horticulture.
Syn. Picea asperata var. aurantiaca (Masters) B.K. Boom. This species is likely most closely related to Picea asperata, which belongs to Clade III R of Ran et al. (2006), which contains P. abies and most of the other northeast Asian spruces P. crassifolia, P. koraiensis, P. koyamae, P. meyeri, P. obovata and P. retroflexa. These species are conveniently united by a simple, obvious character: all have quadrangular needles, while other Asian spruces have laterally or dorsiventrally flattened needles. Type, Sichuan, Daxue Shan, Cheto Shan, E.H. Wilson 3029.
Trees to 25 m tall and 70 cm dbh, typically with a single straight round trunk and a narrowly conical crown. Bark scaly, grooved and ridged, exfoliating. Twigs thick, stiff, more or less orange (turning gray with age), deeply grooved, sparsely pubescent then soon glabrous. Vegetative buds broad-ovoid, 4-6 mm diameter, hidden within leaves, resinous. Leaves directed forward, all around the shoot but parted below on shade foliage, 8-18 × 1.2-2.3 mm, straight or curved, quadrangular (rhombic in cross-section), stomata in 3-6 lines on each surface, leaves at first glaucous but maturing gray-green. Pollen cones axillary near ends of shoots, 10-15 mm long, reddish turning yellow. Seed cones terminal, first erect but later becoming pendulous, cylindrical-oblong with an obtuse apex, 10-12×4-4.5 cm when scales open, reddish brown. Seed scales rhombic-ovoid, 2-2.4 × 1.5-1.8 cm at mid-cone, upper margin erose denticulate, bracts rudimentary and included. Seeds ovoid-conical, 3-4 mm long, brown, with a 12-14 mm transparent yellow-brown wing (Farjon 2010).
Distinguished from P. asperata by glaucous and more stout foliage and by glabrous and glaucous twigs (Wu and Raven 1999), and by the larger seed scales (2-2.4 × 1.5-1.8 cm, vs. 1.2-2 × 0.8-1.6 cm in P. asperata) and the different vegetative buds (obovate vs. conical) (Farjon 2010).
China: Sichuan. Confined to a small area west of Kangding. Forests in this area are increasingly under pressure from indiscriminate logging. Populations have declined and, as yet, there is no protection for the species (Conifer Specialist Group 1998).
The epithet means "orange", a reference to the color of the twigs.
Wilson, who first collected this species, noted during his field surveys that "The Spruce (Picea aurantiaca) is a particularly handsome species, with square, dark green needles on spreading branches and red-brown pendulous cones clustered near the top of the tree" (Wilson 1913).
Conifer Specialist Group. 1998. Picea aurantiaca. In: IUCN 2010. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2010.4. www.iucnredlist.org, accessed 2010.12.21.
Masters, M. T. 1906. On the conifers of China. Journal of the Linnaean Society, Botany 37:420. Available online at www.botanicus.org.
Wilson, E. H. 1913. A Naturalist in Western China. 2 vols. London: Methuen & Co.
The species account at Threatened Conifers of the World.
Last Modified 2023-02-26
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