Abies kawakamii

Abies kawakamii
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Pinophyta
Class: Pinopsida
Order: Pinales
Family: Pinaceae
Genus: Abies
Species: A. kawakamii
Binomial name
Abies kawakamii
(Hayata) T.Ito

Abies kawakamii is a species of conifer in the Pinaceae family. It is found only in Taiwan. First described in 1908 by Bunzō Hayata as a variety of Abies mariesii, a high-mountain fir native to Japan; the next year it was elevated to species rank by Tokutarô Itô. Abies kawakamii is exclusively native to the island of Taiwan, and is one of the southernmost true firs (together with A. fansipanensis, native to Vietnam, and A. guatemalensis, from Mexico and Guatemala). It is a high-mountain species occurring in northern and central Taiwan at elevations between 2400 and 3800 m in association with other temperate plants, dominantly conifers, including Juniperus formosana var. formosana, Tsuga formosana, and Juniperus morrisonicola.[2]

Taiwan fir is a small to medium-sized tree sometimes reaching a height of 35 m and trunk diameter of 1 m. Initially, the bark is scurfy or scaly, lenticellate, later detaching in elongated plates. The branchlets are yellowish-brown when mature, furrowed, hairy. The needles are 1–2.8 cm long, pruinose, with stoma-lines above and 2 stomatal bands below. It has rather small cones 5–7.5 cm long, cylindrical or conical-cylindrical, dark blue, with included bracts.[2]

References

  1. Conifer Specialist Group (1998). "Abies kawakamii". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2012.1. International Union for Conservation of Nature. Retrieved 8 September 2012.
  2. 1 2 Zsolt Debreczy; Istvan Racz (2012). Kathy Musial, ed. Conifers Around the World (1st ed.). DendroPress. p. 1089. ISBN 9632190610. Retrieved 19 July 2012.


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