Dacrydium balansae

Brongn. & Gris (1869)

Common names

No common names are recorded.

Taxonomic notes

Type: New Caledonia, Grande Terre, Province Sud, Bourail, B. Balansa 1380 (holotype P). Syn. Metadacrydium balansae (Brongn. & Gris) Baum.-Bod. ex Melikyan & A.V.Bobrov. It does not appear to have been assessed using molecular methods, but based on morphological evidence, the most closely related species is Dacrydium nidulum from New Guinea and Fiji (de Laubenfels 1972).

Description

Trees 4-12(-20) m tall. Branches in many small divergent shoots. Bark showing hard and smooth cuticles with various small lenticels, becoming gray with age, fibrous inside, shedding in thick brown plates. Juvenile leaves fine and needle-like, up to 13 mm long, gradually changing into adult leaves. Adult leaves thick, tapering off strongly from a large decurrent base, divergent and slightly incurved ending in a blunt apex, 3-4.5 mm long, having a strong dorsal carina, sharp margins, often slightly glaucous. Pollen cones cylindrical, 8-15 × 2 mm, terminal, often on short branches, or lateral, or both; microsporophylls triangular, sharp and not very long. Seed cones terminal on long or short branches with foliage just below the cone that is 20 mm long; often twisted below the fertile part. Cone scales 3.5-4 mm long, never exceeding more than 1 mm in width. Ovule reversed at first completely buried in the scales of the cone but becoming gradually almost erect. Seed 5 × 3.5 mm, separating when ripe from the ridge of the cone scale but remaining more or less surrounded by them, slightly emerging, oval-long, large and thick, tapering off to a dull apex with a lateral, distinct carina (de Laubenfels 1972). See García Esteban et al. (2004) for a detailed characterization of the wood anatomy.

Distribution and Ecology

New Caledonia, at elevations from 0-1000 m (mean 387 m). Within its range, mean annual temperature is 21.1°C, with an average minimum in the coldest month of 14.1°C, and a mean annual precipitation of 1636 mm (Biffin et al. 2011).

This map shows herbarium records of Dacrydium species native to New Caledonia. Blue is D. araucarioides, green is D. balansae, orange is D. guillauminii, and red is D lycopodioides. Click on an icon for further information. Distribution data from GBIF (2020.03.30), edited to remove duplicates.

Dacrydium balansae occurs throughout the main island in the drier parts of the forests, on ultramafic-derived soils. Many New Caledonia species show the ability to grow on ultramafic soils, which have extremely low availability of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and calcium. However, only D. balansae can grow on hypermagnesium soils (Enright and Jaffré 2011). The few herbarium specimens that have been collected in closed-canopy rainforest came from very tall trees almost 20 m tall (de Laubenfels 1972). The tree's usual modest stature is partly due to soil and exposure, with dwarfed trees predominantly on the most metalliferous rocks with very thin soil that support "maquis minier" vegetation. The taller trees are infrequent in moist ravines. The species is locally common but generally does not appear in pure stands; it is associated with conifers that include Agathis ovata, Araucaria spp., and Dacrydium araucarioides, as well as numerous angiosperms (Farjon 2010). However, it forms an almost pure canopy layer in forest on the massif of Koniambo at 400-600 m elevation, which may be an instance of cohort recruitment after landscape-scale disturbance (Enright and Jaffré 2011).

In a 2017 assessment, the IUCN rated this species "Least Concern" for conservation because the total population includes more than 10,000 mature plants and there is no evidence of population decline.

Remarkable Specimens

No data as of 2026-01-10.

Ethnobotany

No data as of 2026-01-10.

Observations

De Laubenfels (1972) reports collections from many locales, and the map above may be helpful in locating accessible occurrences.

Remarks

The species is named for its collector, Benedict Balansa (1825-1892), French botanist and explorer, as is another gymnosperm, Cycas balansae.

Citations

Biffin, Ed, Timothy J. Brodribb, Robert S. Hill, Philip Thomas and Andrew J. Lowe. 2011. Leaf evolution in Southern Hemisphere conifers tracks the angiosperm ecological radiation. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2011.0559. Data from Table S5.

Brongniart, A. and A. Grisebach. 1869. Nouvelle note sur les Conifères Nouvelle-Calédoniennes. Bull. Soc. Bot. France 16:328, available at the Biodiversity Heritage Library, accessed 2025.12.10.

de Laubenfels, David J. 1972. No. 4, Gymnospermes, in A. Aubréville and Jean-F. Leroy, eds., Flore de la Nouvelle-Calédonie et Dépendances. Paris: Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. Available: Biodiversity Heritage Library, accessed 2025.12.12.

Enright, N. J., and T. Jaffré. 2011. Ecology and distribution of the Malesian podocarps. Pp. 57-77 in B. L. Turner and L. A. Cernusak (eds.), Ecology of the Podocarpaceae in Tropical Forests. Smithsonian Contributions to Botany no. 95. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

See also

Association Endemia, a site devoted to New Caledonian species. Has excellent photos, a range map, and other information. In French.

Dallimore et al. (1967).

Sarlin, Bois et Forêts Nouvelle-Calédonie: p. 91 and pl. 20 (1954).

Thanks to Ferenc Kiss for translating de Laubenfels from the French (2003.11).