Scientific name: Phyllocladus hypophyllus Hooker 1852

Synonims: Phyllocladus hypophyllus var. protractus Warb., Phyllocladus major Pilg., Phyllocladus protractus (Warb.) Pilg., Podocarpus hypophyllus (Hook.f.) Kuntze

Common names: Malesian celery pine, Celery top pine

Description

Tree to 30 m tall though much shorter on exposed ridge tops and shrubby the subalpine tree line, with a short cylindrical to fluted trunk to 1 m in diameter. Bark thin, marked by numerous large, warty lenticels, reddish brown to dark brown, breaking up into irregularly rectangular scales and revealing tan inner bark. Crown conical at first, becoming narrowly to broadly dome-shaped with age, with whorls of slender, spreading or contorted, upwardly angled branches. Phylloclades attached singly or in rings of two to five on the long shoots, compound, 10-15 cm long overall, with 5-10 alternately pinnate segments. Each segment (1.5-)3-6(-8) cm long (to 10 cm in juveniles), egg-shaped to diamond-shaped, variously roundly to sharply toothed or deeply lobed, dark green (or sometimes thinly waxy at first) above and paler green to conspicuously waxy greenish white beneath (hence the scientific name, Latin for “under leaf”).Juvenile leaves 5-8 mm long. Scale leaves of adult long shoots and buds 2-3 mm long. Plants usually dioecious. Pollen cones single or, more commonly, in clusters of 2-8(-15) at the tip of a short branchlet or at the base of a growth increment. Each cone 10-15 mm long, 2.5-4 mm thick, yellowish brown just before shedding pollen, on a long stalk 5-25 mm long. Seed cones one (to three) in a notch near the tip of a phylloclade segment or on a highly reduced phylloclade, even to the extent of completely lacking an expanded portion. Each seed cone egg-shaped, 5-10 mm long, 4-6 mm in diameter, with 5-15 bracts of which (one or) two or three (to five) are fertile and mature one to three seeds. Bracts swollen, juicy, bright red fading to tan at maturity. Seeds hard, shiny brown to tan, (3-)5-8 mm long, enclosed for about half their length by the white aril.

Common through the mountains of northern and central Malesia from the northern tip of Luzon (Philippines) to the western tip of Borneo (Indonesia) to the eastern tip of New Guinea (Papua New Guinea). Scattered or somewhat gregarious in a wide range of generally wet, mixed forests and scrublands, from lower montane forests to mossy forests and subalpine dwarf forests and scrublands on exposed ridges, with a roughly inverse relationship between stature and relative prominence in the community; (900-)1,500-3,400(-4000) m.

Conservation Status

Red List Category & Criteria: Least Concern

The enormous range of this species and its abundance where it occurs place it well outside any category of threat, despite substantial inferred decline in parts of its range. It is therefore assessed as Least Concern. Phyllocladus hypophyllus occurs in lower montane to subalpine evergreen rainforests at altitudes between (900-)1,500 and 3,400(-4,000) m a.s.l. At lower altitudes it grows as a canopy tree of considerable size with other conifers, e.g. Agathis sp. in kerangas on white sand derived from sandstone, or in mixed forests with Podocarpaceae, Fagaceae and Lauraceae as the dominant families of trees. It is also found in high montane cloud forest or 'mossy' forest, which remains lower than 20 m and is characterized by epiphytic growth of ferns and mosses. Conifers, including Phyllocladus hypophyllus, Dacrydium sp., Dacrycarpus sp., and Podocarpus sp. may dominate, or these forests are mixed with angiosperms. In New Guinea Nothofagus grandis is often the dominant tree species, with Phyllocladus and podocarps mixed in. At still higher altitudes the forest is dwarfed and Phyllocladus hypophyllus becomes shrubby, often growing on the edges of boggy grasslands (especially in New Guinea) or on rocky ridges. This species is found on a variety of substrates, such as granite, serpentine, sandstone, peaty soils, and sometimes volcanic deposits or eroded limestone. Phyllocladus hypophyllus will be logged often together with other podocarpaceous wood and is probably declining where this logging has been extensive. Deforestation in many parts of its range, particularly in the Philippines, must also have contributed to its decline. Yet it is a species that is common and widespread and also occurs at higher altitudes where trees are much smaller and both logging and deforestation have lesser or even no impact. This species is in cultivation, but rare and mainly limited to botanic gardens. This species is present in several protected areas in all range countries.

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