Podocarpus forrestii

Craib & W.W.Sm. (1920)

Common names

大理罗汉松 dali luohan song [Dali podocarp].

Taxonomic notes

Type: China, Yunnan, Dali, in shady situations amongst scrub. Lat. 25° 40' N. Alt. 10,000 ft (3050 m). Shrub of 2-5 ft. Flowers green. Aug. 1906. G. Forrest 4665 (syntype E). Syn. Margbensonia forrestii (Craib & W.W.Sm.) A.V.Bobrov & Melikyan, Podocarpus macrophyllus subsp. forrestii (Craib & W.W.Sm.) Silba.

Craib and Smith (1920) described this species following several Yunnan collections by George Forrest between 1906 and 1917, and it was so accepted by Gray (1958) although she voiced concern that it might be only a variety of P. macrophyllus, and de Laubenfels (1985) reduced it to a synonym of P. macrophyllus var. macrophyllus. Wu and Raven (1999), however, gave it species rank in the Flora of China, as did de Laubenfels (2015) when he repeated his 1985 publication, providing a new and revised infrageneric taxonomy of Podocarpus; he placed the species in subgenus Foliolatus, section Spathoides, a far-flung section of 11 species distributed from Yunnan to New Caledonia. The section also includes P. gibbsiae, but does not include P. fasciculus; these two were found to be sisters to P. forrestii in the only molecular study to date that has evaluated essentially all taxa in Podocarpus (Khan et al. 2023). That study places it in a relatively small clade (8 species) with P. macrophyllus, but they are not close enough to be varieties of the same species.

Description

Shrubs, or small trees to 3.5 m tall, with fairly stout and stiff branches and a densely leafy crown. Foliage buds small, ovate. Leaves densely crowded, elliptic to linear-elliptic, 2-9 cm × 6-10 mm, coriaceous, with a prominent midvein 0.5-1 mm wide, oblong or oblong-lanceolate, obtuse or rounded at the apex, gradually narrowing at the cuneate or short-attenuate base into a 2-4 mm narrowly winged petiole, adaxially dark green and matte, abaxially gray-green with 30-50 stomatal lines. Pollen cones borne in clusters of 3, spikelike, 15-20 × 2 mm; bracts acute, occasionally irregularly obtuse. Seed cones usually solitary in the leaf axils, peduncle 8 mm long, ovule on a short fleshy glaucous blue receptacle. Seed globose, 7-8 mm in diam. Seed maturity August (Gray 1958, Wu and Raven 1999).

Distribution and Ecology

China: Yunnan, Dali Xian, Diancang Shan, at 2400-3000 m elevation. Occurs in dry or damp, shady places, open thickets, scrub; also cultivated in gardens and school yards (Wu and Raven 1999).

Remarkable Specimens

Ethnobotany

Observations

Remarks

Named for the collector, George Forrest (1873-1932), who collected the type specimen near Dali in 1906. Forrest was a prolific collector in the course of his long life as a field botanist. It was also an adventurous life; here's a good story about him. He is also remembered in Abies forrestii, Pseudotsuga forrestii, and Tsuga forrestii.

Citations

Craib, W. G. and W. W. Smith. 1920. Notes from the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh 12:219. Available: Biodiversity Heritage Library, accessed 2025.02.23.

Gray, Netta E. 1958. A taxonomic revision of Podocarpus, XI. The South Pacific Species of Section Podocarpus, Subsection B. Journal of the Arnold Arboretum 39:474. Available: Biodiversity Heritage Library, accessed 2023.01.08.

Khan, R., Hill, R. S., Liu, J., and Biffin, E. 2023. Diversity, distribution, systematics and conservation status of Podocarpaceae. Plants 12(5):1171. https://doi.org/10.3390/plants12051171.

Laubenfels, D. J. de. 1985. A taxonomic revision of the genus Podocarpus. Blumea 30:51-278.

Laubenfels, D. J. de. 2015. New sections and species of Podocarpus based on the taxonomic status of P. neriifolius (Podocarpaceae) in tropical Asia. Novon 24(2):133–152. https://doi.org/10.3417/2012091.

See also