Common Names

Taxonomic notes

Syn: Podocarpus araucarioides (Brongniart et Grisb.) Sebert et Pancher (1874); Dacrydium arthrotaxoides Carrière (1867) (de Laubenfels 1972).

Description

Trees, commonly 3-6 m tall. Bark thick, scaly, rough, dark brown and slightly fibrous inside, more or less smooth with occasional lenticels on young trees, becoming gray with age. Branches spreading and open, later rising in a candelabra form. Branchlets short, thick, cylindrical. Juvenile leaves acicular, dense, curved, 12 mm long. Transitional leaves short and thick, 5-7 mm long (very similar to the adult leaves of Dacrydium balansae, but a little bit longer). Adult leaves develop gradually from the transitional leaves, scale-like, linear-oblong, about 3-5 mm long by 1-1.4 mm wide, densely overlapping in many rows, rigid, strongly curved, keeled beneath, blunt at the apex. Pollen cones terminal, often on short, lateral shoots, or laterally just below a terminal pollen cone, cylindrical, 9-18 mm long and 2.5-3 mm in diameter. Microsporophylls long, triangular, sharp with incurved apex. Seed cone terminal on short branches whose leaves are about 3 mm long and strongly curved. Cone bracts noticeably longer and straight on top of the cone, the apex slightly hooked, the entire cone becoming fleshy and red at maturity. Seeds 1-3, surrounded by the bracts, becoming erect and a little bit longer than the bracts which enclose them, oval but tapering off to a blunt apex, 4.5 mm long (Dallimore et al. 1967, de Laubenfels 1972).

Range

New Caledonia. It is locally a dominant species in the vegetation on serpentine soils on the southern half of the main island from sea level to 1150 m above sea level (de Laubenfels 1972). Collections, all before 1972 except as noted, have been reported from the following locations:

• Massif de la Pourina near Yaté at an elevation of 300m above sea level (in 1993)
• Plaine des Lacs (15 collections)
• road to Mt. des Sources (6 collections)
• Yaté River (5 collections)
• Prony (4 collections)
• Mt. Dzumac (3 collections)
• Mois de Mai (3 collections)
• Marais Kiki (2 collections)
• Bois du sud (2 collections)
• Mt. Dore (2 collections)
• Blue River
• Peninsula Bogota, 500 m
• mountains below Canala
• summit of peak Foi
• Mt. Humboldt
• mountains below N'Goye, 1000 m
• Négropo
• Mt. Niocol
• upper Oiunné
• Mt. Ouénarou
• Pernod Creek, 170 m
• Pirogues River
• south of Poro, 600 m
• near Port Bouquet
• plateau north of Mt. Prokoméo, 700 m
• ridge north of Mt. Tonta, 950-1150 m
• upper Valley of Pines

Big Tree

Oldest

Dendrochronology

Ethnobotany

Observations

Remarks

Citations

Thanks to Ferenc Kiss for translating de Laubenfels from the French (Dec-2003).

See Also

Ann. Sci. Nat. Paris ser. 5, 6 : 244 (1866)

Bull. Soc. Bot. France 13 : 426 (1866)

Nouv. Arch. Mus. Paris 4 : 5, tab 2 (1868)

Parlatore, in DC., Prodr. 16 (2) : 496 (1868)

Gordon, Pinetum ed. 2 : 103 (1875).

Pilger, in Engler, Pflanzenreich 4 (5) : 48 (1903).

Schinz & Guillaumin ex Sarasin & Roux, Nouv. Calédo. Bot. 1 : 114 (1920).

Compton, Journ. Linn. Soc. 45 : 427 (1922).

Dallimore & Jackson, Handbook Conif. : 26 (1923).

White, Journ. Arnold Arb. 7 : 80 (1926).

Däniker, Mitt. Bot. Mus. Zürich 142 : 44 (1932).

Guillaumin, Acta Horti Gothob, 19 : 7 (1952).

Sarlin, Bois et Forêts Nouv. Calédo. : 91, tab, 17 (1954).

de Laubenfels, Journ. Arnold Arb. 50 : 296 (1969).