鸡毛松 ji mao song

Bracteocarpus kawaii (Hayata) A. V. Bobrov & Melikyan; Podocarpus kawaii Hayata.

Trees to 40 m tall; trunk to 2 m d.b.h.; bark superficially dark brown or blackish, weathering gray, red-brown and granular fibrous within, flaking in thin strips; crown spreading; branchlets stiff, erect. Juvenile leaves borne at 60-75° to branchlet axis, 0.2-0.7 mm apart (branchlets 3-4 × 1.2-1.6 cm in outline), sessile, green or ± glaucous, linear, falcate to "S"-shaped, 6-10(-17) × 0.9-1.2 mm, stomata arranged in 2 whitish rows on abaxial surface, base decurrent, margin entire, apex obliquely incurved-apiculate, apiculus 0.2-0.3 mm. Adult leaves spreading, needlelike, falcate, 0.1-1.5 × 0.4-0.6 mm, base keeled, apex acute. Pollen cones ovoid or ellipsoid and ca. 5 mm before shedding pollen, finally cylindric and 6-12 × 2-

2.5 mm; microsporophylls 2-4 mm, apex triangular, acute or apiculate. Seed-bearing structures solitary or paired, usually only 1 maturing; bractlike leaves at base of peduncle 1-3 mm. Receptacle glaucous, red when ripe, obovoid, 3-4 × 1-2.5 mm Epimatium initially green with bluish tinge, red when ripe. Seed globose or subglobose, 5-6 × 4-6 mm. Pollination Feb-Apr, seed maturity Oct-Dec.

Montane rainforests (Hainan), mixed evergreen broad-leaved forests (mainland), or in pure stands, in valleys of mountain streams on slightly acid, montane yellow-earth; 400-1500 m. NE Guangxi (Jinxiu Yaozu Zizhixian), Hainan, S Yunnan; cultivated in Guangdong [S Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, N Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam; Pacific Islands].

A vulnerable plant in China and one of the most important forest trees in Hainan. The varieties recognized by de Laubenfels are distinguishable only by characters of adult leaves; much material in herbaria is juvenile and so identifiable only to species rank. Chinese plants were treated in FRPS as Podocarpus imbricatus Blume.