Scientific name: Podocarpus nakaii Hayata 1916

Synonyms: Podocarpus macrophyllus var. nakaii (Hayata) H.L.Li & H.Keng

Common names:Nakai yellowwood, Nakai podocarp, Taiwanese podocarp, Tai wan luo han song (Chinese)

Description

Tree to 18 m tall, with trunk to 1.8 m in diameter. Bark pale gray, peeling in strips and becoming ridged and furrowed with age. Crown with slender branches bearing paired branchlets loosely clothed with foliage near the tips. Twigs green, shallowly grooved between the attached leaf bases. Resting buds spherical, 1.5-3 mm in diameter, tightly wrapped by triangular of rounded bud scales with spreading tips. Leaves rather openly and evenly standing out around the twigs and concentrated near their tips, leathery and flexible, reddish at first, becoming shiny bright green above, paler, duller, and slightly waxy beneath, 5-10(-11) cm long, 8-11(-14) mm wide. Pollen cones 2-4(-5) cm long and 3-4 mm wide, one to three directly in the axils of foliage leaves. Seed cones on a short, leafless stalk 2-7(-12) mm long, with a pair of persistent, thick, narrowly triangular basal bracteoles about 1.5 mm long, the reproductive part with two nearly equal bracts separated by inconspicuous grooves, these and the axis becoming reddish orange to red, swollen, and juicy, (4-)7-9(-12) mm long by (3-)5-8(-10) mm thick. Fertile seed scale one, the combined seed coat and epimatium leathery over a hard inner shell, green, 10-12(-15) mm long by 7-8(-10) mm thick, with a prominent crest along one side ending in a pointed beak.

Central Taiwan. Scattered in lower montane, broad-leaved evergreen forests; 300-800 m.

Conservation Status

Red List Category & Criteria: Endangered

(The most recent survey results indicate that Podocarpus nakaii has an area of occupancy less than 500 km2 (estimated to be a little as 64 km2), is known from a maximum of five locations and there has been a recent decline in the number of individuals. The total population size is estimated to be more than 250 but much less than 2,500 with no subpopulation having more than 250 individuals. Populations are under threat from increasing deforestation, agricultural activities and mature trees have been been uprooted for horticultural use. Consequently it is assessed as Endangered under criteria B and C)

References

Farjon, A. (2010). A Handbook of the World's Conifers. Koninklijke Brill, Leiden.

Eckenwalder, J.E. (2009) Conifers of the World: The Complete Reference. Timber Press, Portland.

IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. Cambridge, UK /Gland, Switzerland