Your basket is empty.
This product is currently out of stock
Scientific name: Picea likiangensis var. montigena (Mast.) W.C.Cheng 1937
Synonyms: Picea likiangensis subsp. montigena (Mast.) Silba, Picea montigena Mast.
Common names: Candelabra spruce
Trees to 30-50 m tall, with trunk to 2.5 m in diameter. Trunk monopodial, straight, bark rough and scaly, fissured, grey, with orange-brown freshly exposed bark. Branches of first order long, slender, spreading or ascending. Branches of second order variable, not pendulous, crown pyramidal or conical. Branchlets thick, rigid or slender, firm, pale yellowish grey or orange-brown to reddish brown. Vegetative buds ovoid-conical or conical, 4-6 × 3-4 mm, (slightly) resinous; bud scales small, triangular, appressed, red-brown or purplish brown, persisting several years. Leaves spreading radially, forward above shoot, parted below, 0.6-1.5 cm long, 1-1.5(-2) mm wide, linear, straight or curved, rigid, quadrate-rhombic to transversely rhombic in cross-section. Leaf colour dark green or glaucous green above, bluish green below. Pollen cones axillary, 2-2.5 cm long, rose-red at first, yellowish at maturity. Seed cones terminal, erect at first, pendulous at maturity, often numerous, sessile or short, obliquely pedunculate, oval-oblong, with oblique base and obtuse apex, (4-)7-12(-15) cm long, (3-)3.5-5 cm wide with opened scales. Colour (immature) magenta to red, ripening to yellowish brown, reddish brown, purplish brown or pale brown. Seed scales obovate or broadly obtrullate, 1.5-2.6 × 1-1.7 cm at mid-cone. Bracts rudimentary, ligulate, 2 mm long, entirely included. Seeds ovoid-conical, 2-4 mm long, dark brown; seed wings ovate-oblong, 7-14 mm long, light brown.
A little-known species, possibly a hybrid between Picea likiangensis and Picea asperata, discovered by Ernest Henry Wilson (1876 - 1930) in 1903 in W. Sichuan.
China: SW Sichuan (around Kangding, mainly to the W and S); 3,300 m.
Red List Category & Criteria: Data Deficient
From a population of unknown size, Chinese investigators in 1983 could find only a single tree surviving in or near a small village. Returning in 2003 they found that this tree too had been cut. The accurate local distribution of this variety has never been established, but in 1956 a local farmer reported to have recently seen many trees. It was regularly collected for herbaria at least up to 1931. If future extensive surveys fail to find it in the area, this variety would have to be considered Extinct in the Wild, but for the present it has to be assessed as Data Deficient. The accurate local distribution of this variety has never been established. It was regularly collected for herbaria up until about 1931.
This variety is believed to be of very limited extent of occurrence (EOO) and under threat of deforestation and logging.
In Europe and North America this species and its varieties can be found growing in arboreta and botanic gardens, as well as in large private gardens with tree collections.
In 1995 seed of this variety was supposedly collected and propagated in a tree nursery, resulting in ca. 1,000 seedlings. Several hundred of these survived until present. However, there is uncertainty about the correct identification of this material as it is still immature.
Copyright © Aljos Farjon, James E. Eckenwalder, IUCN, Conifers Garden. All rights reserved.
