Pinus koraiensis

Siebold et Zuccarini 1842

Common names

Korean cedar, Korean pine; 잣나무 [Korean]; チョウセンゴヨウ chosen-goyo, chosen-matsu [Japanese]; 红松 hong song [Chinese]; Корейский кедр [Russian].

Taxonomic notes

Syn.: Pinus strobus Thunb. 1784 non L., Pinus mandschurica Rupr. 1857, Pinus cembra var. mandschurica (Rupr.) Carr. 1867, Strobus koraiensis (Sieb. et Zucc.) Moldenke 1939, Apinus koraiensis (Sieb. et Zucc.) Moldenke 1952, Pinus prokoraiensis Zhao et al. 1990 (Farjon 1998).

Description

Monoecious, evergreen trees up to 30 m tall and 150 cm dbh. Bark gray-brown, smooth, on larger trees turning gray-black, scaly, peeling. Shoots red-brown, densely puberulent. Cataphylls alternate, imbricate near base of short shoots, red-brown, membranaceous, oblong or linear-oblong, apex obtuse, 5-15 mm long, deciduous. Needles in fascicles of 5 at end of short shoot, 6-13 cm × 1 mm, triangular in transverse section, dark green on outer face, two inner faces whitish green with stomata; resin canals 3, marginal near the angles. Flowers axillary. Pollen cones crowded at base of new shoots, ellipsoid. Female cones crowded near end of new shoots in groups of 1-5, conelets green, ovoid. Cones on a short peduncle, ovoid or cylindric-ovoid, 9-11 × 5-6 cm, green [?]; scales woody, broadly rhomboid, ca. 2.5 cm long and wide, green on upper half, brown on lower half, apex with recurved spiny boss [apophysis?]. Seeds large, thickly triangular-obovoid, wingless, ca. 15 mm long, 10 mm across, 7 mm thick. Flowers in May, cones mature in October of the following year. 2n = 24 (Iwatsuki et al. 1995). See also, Wu and Raven (1999).

Distribution and Ecology

NE Korea, Japan: C. Honshu southward from Tochigi Pref. and northward from Gifu Pref.) and Shikoku; the Ussuri River basin in China: Heilongjiang and Russia. In subalpine forests at elevations of 1300-2500 m (Iwatsuki et al. 1995). Ecologically similar to P. sibirica (Vladimir Dinets e-mail 1998.01.10). Hardy to Zone 3 (cold hardiness limit between -39.9°C and -34.4°C) (Bannister and Neuner 2001).

Big tree

A specimen 42 m tall occurs in the Ussuri Nat. Res. (Vladimir Dinets e-mail 1998.01.10).

Oldest

Dendrochronology

Ethnobotany

Observations

Remarks

Citations

Siebold, P.F. von and J.G. Zuccarini. 1842. Flora Japonica sive plantae, ... Leiden. Vol. 2(3), p. 28, t. 116.

See also

Farjon (1984).

Mirov (1967).