Common Names

Cedro, tascate (Zanoni and Adams 1979).

Taxonomic notes

No synonyms. Type location is Puerto de Santo Domingo, 30 km E of El Salto, Durango; only 11 additional collections are recorded (Farjon 2005).

Description

Shrubs and trees to 5 m tall. Multistemmed, branching near base, with irregular crowns. Bark ash-brown, forming long fibrous strips. Branches ascending-erect to spreading, terminal whips recurved, bark red-brown and smooth or with peeling scales. Angle of branching on ultimate twigs about 60°. Scale leaves mostly opposite, the leaves on ultimate twigs resembling a chain of beads; scale leaves 1-2 mm long, margins finely toothed (20X hand lens), dark gray-green. Seed cones gibbous, 6-7 × 4-6 mm, with soft pulp. Seeds 1-3(-4) per cone, subconic to oval, acuminate to obtuse, 3-4 × 2-3 mm, dark red-brown with shallow grooves; hilum up to half the length of the seed (Zanoni and Adams 1979).

Range

Mexico: Aguascalientes, Chihuahua, Durango, Jalisco, Sonora, Zacatecas; at 1600-2900 m elevation. Grows in Pinus-Quercus or Pinus-Quercus-Juniperus-Arctostaphylos forests. It is apparently rare throughout its range and thus is probably vulnerable to extinction or, at least, a significant loss of genetic diversity, but further study of its distribution is warranted (Zanoni and Adams 1979, Farjon 2005).

Big Tree

Oldest

Dendrochronology

Ethnobotany

Observations

Remarks

Citations

Martínez. 1946. Anal. Inst. Biol. Mexico 17:94-96.

See Also

Farjon (2005) provides a detailed account, with illustrations.