Common Names

Taxonomic notes

Syn: Podocarpus rospigliosii Pilger 1923; Decussocarpus rospigliosii (Pilg.) de Laub. 1969; Nageia rospigliosii (Pilg.) de Laub. 1987 (Farjon 1998).

Description

Trees to 30 m tall and 40 cm dbh, with an oval crown commonly branched from above 3 m. Bark scaly. Leaves light green, 1 cm long, opposite with a whole margin, flattened along the branches, with petioles almost nonexistent. Flowers cream-colored, 1 cm lang, with ovoid green fruits 3 cm long bearing a single seed. A very slow-growing tree (Nieto and Rodriguez 2003).

Range

Western Venezuela, east Colombia, central Peru (Farjon 1998). Native to the wet forests of the Andes, it grows best at 1500-3500 m elevation, where average annual temperatures are 10°-18°C and annual precipitation is 1500-2500 mm. The tree needs constant humidity and cloudines, which it finds in habitats that include pre-mountainous wet and very wet forest, low mountainous wet and very wet forest, and mountainous pluvial forest. The tree develops best on gentle slopes, fertile river lowlands, plateaus, and small depressions. It grows in wet, clay or clay-sand, deep, relatively fertile soils with good to slow drainage and acid pH (Nieto and Rodriguez 2003).

Big tree

Oldest

Dendrochronology

Ethnobotany

The wood is easily worked, used for furniture, veneer, moldings, wood shaving boards, boxes, and general cabinetry. It is also used for light poles, paper pulp, and pencils (Nieto and Rodriguez 2003).

Observations

Remarks

Citations

Nieto, V. M. and J. Rodriguez. 2003. Decussocarpus rospigliosii. Species description in the Tropical Tree Seed Manual. Available http://www.rngr.net/Publications/ttsm/Folder.2003-07-11.4726 (accessed 2007.08.31).

See Also

This page is from the Gymnosperm Database
URL: http://www.conifers.org/po/re/rospigliosii.htm
Edited by Christopher J. Earle
Last modified on 2007.08.31