Scientific name: Podocarpus nivalis W.J. Hooker 1843

Synonyms: Nageia nivalis (Hook.) Kuntze, Podocarpus montanus Colenso, Podocarpus nivalis var. erectus Cockayne

Common names: Alpine totara, Snow totara, Mountain totara

Description

Low, spreading or somewhat upright shrub to 1(-3) m, with prostrate trunk about 15 cm in diameter. Bark pale reddish brown to grayish, furrowed and peeling in narrow strips. Crown outstretched to flatly dome-shaped, with spreading, contorted branches rooting in contact with the soil and with numerous stiffly upright branchlets densely and tightly clothed with foliage. Twigs yellowish green, prominently grooved between the attached leaf bases. Resting buds inconspicuous, nearly spherical, about 1 mm in diameter, tightly clothed by narrow, minutely and irregularly toothed bud scales. Leaves closely and evenly spaced all around the branchlets, stiffly angled forward, thick and hard with a thickened margin, glossy yellowish green, bright green, or bluish green above, and with narrow white stomatal bands on either side of the midrib beneath, largest near the middle of each growth increment, (0.5-)1-1.5 cm long (to 2.5 cm in juveniles), 2-4 mm wide. Blades straight or curved to one side, widest near the middle or beyond, tapering gradually or abruptly to a short, hard, pointed tip and to the nearly stalkless base. Midrib grooved above and prominently raised beneath, with one resin canal beneath the midvein. Pollen cones red, 4.5-10(-15) mm long (to 25 mm after the pollen is shed) and 1.5-3 mm wide, (one or) two to four on a very short, leafless stalk to 6 mm long. Pollen scales with a minute, untoothed, blunt tip less than 0.5 mm long and wide. Seed cones on a very short, leafless stalk to 4 mm long, without basal bracteoles, the reproductive part with two nearly equal bracts, these and the axis becoming bright red, nearly spherical, swollen and juicy, (3-)5-7 mm long by 5-6 mm thick. Fertile seed scales one (or two), the combined seed coat and epimatium smooth and hard, bronzy green, (3.5-)5-6 mm long by 2-3 mm thick, with a blunt crest along one side.

Mountains of North Island and South Island (New Zealand) from near Auckland southward. Forming large, clonal patches in subalpine scrublands and talus slopes or as scattered individual shrubs in adjacent forest margins; 800-1,800(-2,500) m.

Conservation Status

Red List Category & Criteria: Least Concern

As Podocarpus nivalis is widespread in much of the highland part of New Zealand, and has not been affected to any great extent by deforestation, it is assessed as Least Concern. The population trend is thought to be stable.

Podocarpus nivalis occurs at higher altitudes in the sub-alpine to alpine scrubland and tussock grassland of the New Zealand mountains. Its altitudinal range varies from 800 m to 2,500 m a.s.l. depending on local climate and exposure. It is a species that commonly creeps low over rocks, but when competing with tall grasses or in tall scrubland it may grow to a more erect bush, sometimes several meters wider than tall. In open tussock grassland (Chionochloa rubra) it is often associated with Hebe, Olearia, Dracophyllum, Gleichenia, and the moss Racomitrium, etc. In scrubland it can be found with the conifers Halocarpus bidwillii and Phyllocladus trichomanoides var. alpinus, often interspersed with ericoid dwarf shrubs and scattered grasses in a lichen-rich ground cover.

Locally erosion caused by overgrazing of livestock or introduced deer may have caused decline. No uses have been recorded although it is quite commonly cultivated as an ornamental shrub.

This species is present in several national parks.

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