Line drawing; for full size image go to the Flora of China (Fu et al. 1999).
Foliage and maturing cones on a specimen in habitat, west Hubei [Jean Hoch, 2020.11.08, Facebook post].
Line drawing; for full size image go to the Flora of China (Fu et al. 1999).
Foliage and maturing cones on a specimen in habitat, west Hubei [Jean Hoch, 2020.11.08, Facebook post].
Cephalotaxus sinensis
粗榧 cu fei [Chinese] (Fu et al. 1999).
Type: China, W Sichuan, Baoxing ("Mupin"), E.H. Wilson 1115 (holo A). Synonymy:
Perhaps because it is a morphologically diverse taxon with a large range, this may have the most confused and contentious taxonomy of any species in the genus--and it doesn't help that it's actually two species. See Cephalotaxus for discussion of the general taxonomic problem. In particular, going back to the 1978 Flora of China, no two authors have agreed on the circumscription of C. sinensis. The issue has been made more clear, however, by detailed molecular studies providing complete sequencing of the Cephalotaxus chloroplast genome, including multiple samples from all putative taxa (Wang et al. 2022). This work has shown that C. sinensis and C. latifolia are synonymous, sharing a clade sister to C. alpina, this larger clade sister to C. fortunei. The same study also demonstrated the existence of an undescribed cryptospecies within C. sinensis, the cryptospecies being sister to the alpina-fortunei-sinensis clade. The existence of this cryptospecies had first been ascertained in earlier work on the chloroplast genome (Gao et al. 2015), but the more recent work firmly established both its existence and its phylogenetic position. On the basis of this, it now seems that the treatments for C. sinensis provided by Fu et al. (1999) and Farjon (2010) were substantially correct, except that both authors recognized C. latifolia as distinct on the basis of a different leaf apex morphology. The more recent treatments by Lang et al. (2013) and Zhang et al. (2019) synonymized C. sinensis with C. harringtonia, a result unsupported by the molecular evidence, although there are morphological similarities.
Shrubs or small trees to 15 m tall and 120 cm dbh with a wide, open, rounded crown. Bark thin, exfoliating in narrow strips, reddish to gray-brown. Foliage-bearing twigs glabrous, grooved between decurrent leaf bases, green turning brown. Leaves directed forward at 65-80° to the twig axis, arrayed in two ranks, sometimes forming a flat foliar unit but on sun foliage often turned up to form a V-shape; straight or slightly falcate, 1.8-5 cm × 2-4.5 mm, nearly sessile with a cuneate base, linear or linear-lanceolate, gradually or abruptly tapering to an acute, shortly mucronate to long acuminate apex, coriaceous, dark or olive-green above, lighter green below with two pale stomatal bands each comprised of 10-15 intermittent lines; upper midrib continuous, raised, 0.4 mm wide; lower midrib continuous, slightly raised, 0.5-0.6 mm wide; margins flat or slightly revolute. Pollen cones in rows of capitula on the underside of foliage-bearing twigs; axillary; each capitulum on a 1-3 mm long scaly peduncle subtended by ovate, incurved bracts; each capitulum having 6-10 sessile, globose, pink or light brown cones 3-4 mm diameter. Microsporophylls 4-15 per cone each with 2-3 globose, cream- or pink-colored pollen sacs. Seed cones solitary or borne 2-6 together at base of foliage-bearing twigs on 2-8 mm long peduncles; arils obovoid to ellipsoid, green to purplish or grayish, at maturity 17-25 × 9-16 mm, ripening soft and orange-red to purple, smooth or with up to 6 longitudinal striations. Seeds obovoid to subglobose, 12-22 × 8-14 mm, apex mucronate or cuspidate. Pollination March-June, seed maturity (June-)July-November (Fu et al. 1999, Farjon 2010).
China: Anhui 安徽, Chongqing 重庆, Fujian 福建, Guangdong 广东, Guangxi 广西, Guizhou 贵州, Henan 河南, Hubei 湖北, Hunan 湖南, Jiangsu 江苏, Jiangxi 江西, Shaanxi 陕西, Shanghai 上海, Sichuan 四川, Yunnan 云南, Zhejiang 浙江; cultivated in Shandong. Found at elevations of 200-3200 m on granite, sandstone, and limestone substrates in montane conifer or mixed forests, thickets, stream valleys, valley bottoms, and open situations (Fu et al. 1999, Farjon 2010). Bannister and Neuner (2001) rate it hardy to Zone 7 (cold hardiness limit between -17.7°C and -12.2°C), but Tripp (1995) pushes it to Zone 6; they were probably considering different provenances of the species, which is among the most widely-distributed in the genus.
Distribution data (C. sinensis shown in blue), based on GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.bz6u39 (2024.08.24). Open left pane for legend; click on any icon for a link to source information. See map notes (left pane) for details on map preparation.
The undescribed cryptospecies discussed above (Taxonomic notes) is based upon two samples collected from the karst region of southwest Guizhou and southeast Yunnan. As discussed by Wang et al. (2022), "in a study including more individuals collected from this karst region, in adjacent areas in southwest Guizhou, southeast Yunnan and north Vietnam, standard DNA barcodes already indicated the existence of this cryptic species, though it was not distinguished due to a lack of sufficient sequence variations in the nrDNA ITS region (Gao et al. 2015). The new taxon may be adapted to karst habitats and has become a distinct species over time, as also found in Taxus and Amentotaxus in this region. More detailed morphological study for this group is needed to describe the new species."
No data as of 2024.10.01.
No data as of 2024.10.01.
No data as of 2024.10.01.
The epithet means "of China". First introduced to the West by Wilson, ca. 1916 (Tripp 1995).
Farjon, Aljos. 2013. Cephalotaxus latifolia. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2013: e.T42199A2960388. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2013-1.RLTS.T42199A2960388.en, accessed on 2024.08.05.
Farjon, Aljos, Keith Rushforth, and T. Christian. 2013. Cephalotaxus sinensis. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2013: e.T42200A2960468. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2013-1.RLTS.T42200A2960468.en. Accessed on 2024.08.28.
Gao, Lian-Ming, De-Zhu Li, and Jie Liu. 2015. DNA barcoding for identification of Cephalotaxus and the discovery of new species. Genome, page 215 (Abstract only).
Wang, Jie, Chao-Nan Fu, Zhi-Qiong Mo, Michael Möller, Jun-Bo Yang, Zhi-Rong Zhang, De-Zhu Li, and Lian-Ming Gao. 2022. Testing the Complete Plastome for Species Discrimination, Cryptic Species Discovery and Phylogenetic Resolution in Cephalotaxus (Cephalotaxaceae). Frontiers in Plant Science 13: 768810. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.768810, accessed 2024.08.26.
Li H.L. 1953. Lloydia 16:162.
Last Modified 2024-09-26
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