Common Names

Outeniqua yellowwood (Palmer 1972).

Taxonomic notes

Syn: Taxus falcata Thunb. 1800; Podocarpus falcatus (Thunb.) Endl. 1847; Nageia falcata (Thunb.) Carr. 1869; Decussocarpus falcatus (Thunb.) de Laub. 1969 (Farjon 1998).

Description

"Tall tree generally 10-25 m high but attaining a height of 60 m with a clean bole of more than 20 m and a girth of about 7 m. Bark greyish to purplish, more or less smooth and persistent in young trees, flaking in rectangular to roundish pieces in older specimens. Branchlets terete or square (on juvenile specimens generally square), distinctly ridged by decurrent leaf bases. Terminal buds about 1 mm in diameter; outer bud scales very narrowly triangular, 2-2.5 mm long and about 1 mm wide. Leaves spirally arranged, on branchlets of juvenile specimens often subopposite, spreading to suberect, glaucous to yellowish-green, twisted at the base and lamina thus orientated in a more or less vertical plane, narrowly linear-lanceolate to linear-elliptic, falcate to straight, acute to obtuse; adult leaves (1-) 2-4 (-4.5) cm long and (1.2-) 2-4 (-6) mm wide; juvenile leaves up to 12 cm long and 0.6 cm wide; midrib slightly raised on lower surface, very slightly raised on upper surface; stomata present on both surfaces, arranged in 14-20 ± distinct longitudinal lines on either side of midrib. Male cones solitary or in groups of 2-4, subsessile to very shortly stalked, 5-13 mm long, elongating up to 15 mm after shedding pollen, (2-) 3 (-3.5) mm in diameter, brownish; outer sterile scales at base very broadly triangular-trullate to very broadly obovate, crenulate to denticulate, 0.5-1 mm long and 1-1.5 mm wide; terminal lobe of fertile scales very broadly triangular-trullate, 0.6-0.8 mm long and 0.8-1.4 mm wide, crenulate to lacerate; pollen sacs 0.6-0.7 mm long and about 0.3-0.4 mm in diameter. Female cones solitary on scaly or leafy branches 7-27 mm long and 1.5-2.5 mm in diameter, widest at the top just below seed; only the terminal scale fertile. Seed subspherical to obovoid, (1.2-) 1.3-1.7 (-1.8) cm long, glaucous to greyish-green, ripening to a yellowish or light reddish-brown colour; testa consisting of outer somewhat fleshy covering up to 3 mm thick which becomes very resinous inwards, and inside this a subspherical, somewhat laterally compressed tubercled kernel 1-1.2 (-1.4) cm long with hard woody walls (0.8-) 1-1.7 (-2) mm thick" (Leistner 1966).

Range

South Africa. "This, the tallest member of the genus in Southern Africa, occurs in coastal and montane forests from the Swellendarn district in the Cape to the northern Transvaal and southern Mozambique. It is much less common than P. latifolius and apparently is only rarely dominant" (Leistner 1966).

Big Tree

In 2003, Robert Van Pelt (unpub. data) measured the "Stormsriver Big Tree" at a dbh of 313 cm, a height of 39 m, and a crown spread of 37.5 m. This makes it the largest known podocarp outside of New Zealand (where Podocarpus totara is substantially larger, while Dacrycarpus dacrydioides and Dacrydium cupressinum are taller but more slender).

Oldest

Dendrochronology

Ethnobotany

Observations

A fairly common tree in its native range; an occasional ornamental in New South Wales and southern California.

Remarks

Monkeys and birds are reported to eat the fruit (Leistner 1966).

Citations

Leistner, O.A. 1966. Podocarpaceae. Pp. 34-41 in L.E. Codd, B. De Winter and H.B. Rycrodt (eds.), Flora of Southern Africa, Volume I. Republic of South Africa Department on Agricultural Technical Services (as P. falcatus).

See Also