Picea purpurea

Masters 1906

Common names

紫果云杉 ziguo yunshan [Chinese]

Taxonomic notes

Syn: P. likiangensis (Franchet) E. Pritzel var. purpurea (Masters) Dallimore et Jackson 1923 (Farjon 1998).

Description

Trees to 50 m tall and 100 cm dbh, with a pyramidal crown. Bark dark gray and scaly. Branchlets yellow, graying with age, densely pubescent. Leaves spreading radially, or closely appressed forward on upper side of branchlets, spreading on lower side, straight or slightly curved, flattened-rhombic in cross section, 7-12×1.5-1.8 mm, with stomatal lines 4-6 along the lower surface, apex variable. Seed cones reddish to very dark purple, ellipsoid, 2.5-4(-6)×1.7-3 cm. Seed scales loosely arranged, rhombic-ovate, 13-.6×13 mm, papery, undulate, erose-denticulate. Seeds ca. 9 mm including brown, purple-spotted wing. Cotyledons 5-7, 10-13 mm. Pollination April, seed maturity October (Wu and Raven 1999).

Distribution and Ecology

China: S Gansu, E Qinghai, NW Sichuan; at 2600-3800 m elevation (Farjon 1998, Wu and Raven 1999). Hardy to Zone 5 (cold hardiness limit between -28.8°C and -23.3°C) (Bannister and Neuner 2001).

Big tree

Oldest

Dendrochronology

Ethnobotany

Observations

Remarks

Citations

Masters, M.T. 1906. On the conifers of China. Journal of the Linnaean Society, Botany 37:418. Available online at www.botanicus.org.

See also

Farjon (1990).