Scientific name: Picea crassifolia V.Komarov 1923

Synonyms: -

Common names: Qinghai spruce, Qing hai yun shan (Chinese)

Description

Tree to 25 m tall, with trunk to 0.5(-0.7) m in diameter. Bark reddish brown to dull, dark brown, breaking up into small, scaly plates with age. Crown dense, conical to narrowly cylindrical, with upswept, horizontal, or downswept branches bearing numerous short side branches all around, opening up somewhat with age. New branchlets greenish yellow, pink or brownish yellow, hairy or not. Buds 5-10(-12) mm long, slightly resinous or not. Needles bright green, (1.5-)2-3 cm long, curving or angled slightly forward and sometimes upward, flattened diamond-shaped, with four to six lines of stomates on each of the two outer faces and five to eight lines on the inner faces, blunt to pointed. Pollen cones 10-25 mm long, yellowish pink to yellowish red. Seed cones 7-11 cm long, green or purple before maturity, ripening dull dark brown, sometimes with a purplish tinge. Seed scales broadly egg-shaped, smooth-edged, woody and stiff. Seed body 3-4 mm long, the wing 9 mm longer.

Endemic to China: Gansu, Qinghai (Qilian Shan, around Qinghai Hu), Nei Mongol (Daqing Shan), Ningxia (Helan Shan); 1,600-3,800 m.

Conservation Status

Red List Category & Criteria: Least Concern

(At present, there is no decline recorded for this species. Most of its subpopulations are in very remote mountain ranges. There is a possibility that exploitation will increase in future, due to increased demand for timber. At this stage Picea crassifolia is assessed as Least Concern)

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