Scientific name: Podocarpus salignus D.Don 1824

Synonyms:Nageia chilina (Rich.) F.Muell., Podocarpus chilinus Rich.

Common names: Willow-leaf podocarp, Mañío de Hojas Largas (Spanish)

Description

Tree to 20 m tall, with trunk frequently crooked, to 0.5(-1) m in diameter. Bark grayish brown, fibrous, shedding in elongate flakes. Crown conical at first, becoming dome-shaped with age, very dense, with numerous slender, flexible, and slightly drooping branches bearing scattered and clustered branchlets densely clothed with foliage. Twigs yellowish green, inconspicuously to prominently grooved between the attached leaf bases. Resting buds dome-shaped, 2-2.5 mm long and 3-4 mm wide, somewhat loosely wrapped by broadly triangular bud scales with long free tips. Leaves mostly evenly spaced along the twigs and projecting all around or twisted horizontally to the sides, gently drooping, glossy dark or bright green above, yellowish green beneath, (5-)6-10(-12) cm long, (3-)5-7(-8) mm wide. Blades straight or curved to one side, nearly parallel-sided, tapering very gradually to the narrowly triangular tip and more abruptly to the roundly wedge-shaped base with a short petiole to about 4 mm long. Midrib narrowly and sharply raised above, scarcely so beneath, with one resin canal beneath the midvein, water-conducting and support cells extending out from the midvein in wings to the margin, and an interrupted layer of hypodermis cells beneath the upper epidermis. Pollen cones very thin and droopy, 2-3 cm long (to 3.5 cm after the pollen is shed) and just 1-1.5 mm wide, (one to) five or six directly in the axils of foliage leaves or on a very short, leafless stalk to 2 mm long. Pollen scales with a rounded, upturned tip about 0.5 mm long. Seed cones on a short, leafless stalk (8-)10-15(-20) mm long, without basal bracteoles, the reproductive part with two or three (or four) unequal bracts, these and the axis becoming very swollen, juicy, and red to purplish red at maturity, nearly spherical, 6-8(-10) mm in diameter. Fertile seed scales one or two, the combined seed coat and epimatium with a smooth, leathery skin over a hard inner shell, reddish, 6-8 mm long by 3-4 mm thick, with a rounded crest along one side ending in a beak.

Central Chile from the Rio Maule at about 35°15’S to the former Osorno province of south-central Chile at about 41°S. Growing as scattered trees or small groves in the understory of temperate rain forest dominated by Nothofagus oblique and other hardwoods, mostly along streamsides or on gentle, wet slopes; (0-)100-1,000(-1,500) m.

Conservation Status

Red List Category & Criteria: Vulnerable

(According to recent surveys including targeted fieldwork (CONAF et al.1999, Hechenleitner et al. 2005) there has been at least a 30% decrease in the population over the last three generations (60 years) following the conversion of native forests to commercial plantations and the devastating effects of fires. On this basis Podocarpus salignus is assessed as Vulnerable)

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