Your basket is empty.
Scientific name: Picea torano (P.Siebold ex K.Koch) Koehne 1893
Synonyms: Abies polita Siebold & Zucc., Abies torano Siebold ex K.Koch, Picea polita (Siebold & Zucc.) Carrière, Pinus abies Thunb., Pinus polita (Siebold & Zucc.) Antoine, Pinus torano (Siebold ex K.Koch) Voss
Common names: Tigertail spruce (English), Hari-momi, Bara-momi, Tora momi, Torano momi (Japanese)
Tree to 30(-40) m tall, with trunk to 1(-1.3) m in diameter. Bark grayish brown, becoming shallowly furrowed between narrow, irregular, scaly ridges. Crown broadly conical, with long, horizontal branches bearing short, horizontal to upright side branches, becoming dangling with extreme age. New branchlets yellowish brown, hairless and shiny. Buds 8-12 mm long, a little resinous or not. Needles dark green, mostly 1.5-2 cm long, curved forward at the tips, sticking out to the sides and twisted upward above the twigs, square, with four to six lines of stomates on each face, stiff and fiercely prickly. Pollen cones 30-35 mm long, reddish purple. Seed cones (-5)7-10(-12) cm long, green before maturity, ripening yellowish brown to reddish brown. Seed scales fan-shaped with a rounded or rounded-triangular, minutely toothed or smooth edge, thin but woody and stiff. Seed body 5-7 mm long, the wing 10-13 mm longer.
The name Picea polita is more often seen than Picea torano, being the norm, at least until the early 21st Century, in most published floras and most horticultural texts.
Mountains on Pacific Ocean side of Japan in central Honshū (south to Kii Peninsula), Shikoku, and Kyūshū. Occasionally forming pure stands but more commonly mixed with other conifers and hardwoods on volcanic soils; (400-)600-1,300(-1,500) m.
Red List Category & Criteria: Vulnerable
The more accessible and large trees have been cut in the past and were replaced by afforestation with different species, e.g. Cryptomeria japonica and Larix kaempferi. Due to the fact that this species is poorly protected, the causes of decline are likely to affect this species further in the future.
Picea torano occurs in (low) mountains at elevations between 400 m and 1,500 m a.s.l., almost invariably on podzolic soils of young volcanic rocks such as lava flows and tuffs. The climate is cool, moist maritime, with annual precipitation exceeding 1,000 mm, the winters are cold and snowy, especially at the higher elevations. There are some small remnants of pure stands left, e.g. at the northern end of Lake Yamanaka, elsewhere it is mixed with Abies homolepis, Larix kaempferi, Pinus densiflora and/or broad-leaved trees, e.g. Betula, Fagus, Acer, Quercus mongolica var. grosseserrata, Prunus maximowiczii, and Zelkova serrata.
Large stands of this species have been depleted and replaced with other species, but it is widespread and occurs also in mixed conifer/broad-leaved forests from central Honshū southwards.
Tigertail spruce is uncommon and grows in inaccessible places, therefore it is not an important timber tree. In Japan it is a popular amenity tree, used in gardens and parks. Despite its striking foliage and cones and conical habit in cultivation, it remains an uncommon tree in gardens and arboreta in Europe and is even less common elsewhere outside Japan.
One subpopulation is found within a protected area.
Picea torano ‘Hergest Croft’ Picea torano ‘Tigertail’ Picea torano ‘Zwergform’
Copyright © Aljos Farjon, James E. Eckenwalder, IUCN, Conifers Garden. All rights reserved.
