Pinus taiwanensis

Hayata 1911

Common names

黄山松 Taiwan song [Chinese], Taiwan red pine.

Taxonomic notes

Pinus taiwanensis is the Taiwanese representative of a group of three closely related taxa: Pinus taiwanensis of Taiwan, Pinus luchuensis of Japan, and Pinus hwangshanensis of mainland China. All three taxa are morphologically similar, but distinct, and they are here treated as separate species, although they could also be called subspecies of P. luchuensis.

Syn.: Pinus brevispica Hayata 1913; P. luchuensis sensu Wu 1956, non Mayr 1894; P. luchuensis subsp. taiwanensis (Hayata) D. Z. Li 1997 (Li 1975, Wu and Raven 1999).

Description

"A large tree, up to 35 m in height and 80 cm in diameter, the trunk straight, the branches horizontal, the bark fissured into small scales. Leaves 2 in a fascicle, semicircular in cross section, more or less rigid, 8-11 cm long, the margins serrulate, generally with 4 resin ducts. Mature cones oblong-ovoid, 6-7 cm long. Seeds winged, 15-18 mm long including the wing" (Li 1975).

Liu (1970) and Li (1975) note that P. luchuensis, compared to P. taiwanensis, has longer needles (12-16 vs. 8-11 cm), fewer resin ducts (2-3 vs. 4-7); shorter cones (4-5 vs 6-7 cm); thinner bark; and different inner bark coloration (pale yellow-white vs. pale red-white).

Distribution and Ecology

Taiwan: Chiayi, Xinchu, Ilan, Nantou, & Taichung Xians; 750-3500 m elevation in central ranges of Taiwan; in habitats ranging from large pure stands to broadleaf-conifer forest to subalpine meadow (HAST 1999, Li 1975, Liu 1970). Hardy to Zone 8 (cold hardiness limit between -12.1°C and -6.7°C) (Bannister and Neuner 2001).

Remarkable Specimens

The oldest known living specimen, 336 years, was documented in a tree-ring chronology covering the period 1679-2015 (crossdated after 1799), collected at Tianmu Mountain on the Anhui-Zhejiang border in China by Wang Feng and colleagues (doi.org/10.25921/0q6b-hm26). This site was used in an exploratory climate-growth study (Wang et al. 2019).

Ethnobotany

An important timber tree in Taiwan (Wu and Raven 1999).

Observations

Not seen. Some specific location data (HAST 1999) follow:

Taiwan: 121°12'16"E, 24°28'08"N, 2650 m; 120°58'E, 23°35'N; 121°16'E, 24°03'N, 2360-3500 m; otherwise 2150-3450 m. Habitats include primary forest, mixed with Pinus armandii; mixed Tsuga, Chamaecyparis, Pinus and Fagaceae forest on mountain ridge; mixed broadleaf woodland and Pinus plantation; mixed broadleaf-confer forest; and scattered in alpine meadow. Cited trees ca. 4-10 m tall.

Remarks

The epithet refers to the species' occurrence in Taiwan.

Citations

Herbarium of the Research Center For Biodiversity, Academia Sinica, Taipei [HAST]. 1999. Database output at http://www2.sinica.edu.tw:8080/hast/eindex.html, accessed 1999.03.15, now defunct.

Hayata. 1911. J. Coll. Sci. Imp. Univ. Tokyo. 30(1): 307.

Wang, Feng, Dominique Arseneault, Biao Pan, Qian Liao, and Junji Sugiyama. 2019. Pre-1930 unstable relationship between climate and tree-ring width of Pinus taiwanensis Hayata in southeastern China. Dendrochronologia 57:125629. DOI: 10.1016/j.dendro.2019.125629.

See also

Huang 1994 (the Flora of Taiwan).