Scientific name: Picea morrisonicola Hayata 1908

Synonyms: -

Common names: Taiwan spruce, Mount Morrison spruce English), Taiwan yun shan (Chinese)

Description

Tree to 40(-50) m tall, with trunk to 1(-1.5) m in diameter. Bark grayish brown, remaining scaly with age. Crown roughly cylindrical, with long, thin horizontal branches bearing short, horizontal side branches. New branchlets pale yellowish brown, hairless. Buds (2-)3-5 mm long, slightly resinous. Needles dark green, 0.8-1.8 cm long, curved forward, diamond-shaped and slightly flattened top to bottom, with two or three lines of stomates on the two outer faces and four or five lines on the two inner ones, blunt or pointed but not prickly. Pollen cones 10-15 mm long, red. Seed cones (4-)5-7.5 cm long, purplish green before maturity, ripening brown. Seed scales egg-shaped, with a smooth edge, woody and stiff. Seed body 3-4 mm long, the wing 6-8 mm longer.

High peaks of the central range of Taiwan, including Yushan (called Mount Morrison in English, hence the scientific name). Forming pure stands or more commonly mixed with other montane and subalpine conifers on slopes and in ravines; (2,000-)2,300-2,900(-3,000) m.

Conservation Status

Red List Category & Criteria: Vulnerable

There has been an historic reduction in its area of occupancy but it is unlikely that this has been sufficient to meet the threshold for the Endangered category, hence the species is listed as Vulnerable as the reduction is likely to have been between 30 and 49% over the past three generations (150 years).

Generally, found in small stands or mixed with other conifers. Picea morrisonicola is a high montane species, occurring at elevations between 2,000 m and 3,000 m a.s.l. on N-facing mountain slopes and in ravines. The soils are acid and podzolized. The climate is cold temperate, with a monsoon character and very wet: annual precipitation exceeds 4,000 mm. This spruce occurs in association with Tsuga chinensis, Pseudotsuga sinensis, Pinus armandii, and with Abies kawakamii and Juniperus squamata var. morrisonicola to the tree line; at lower elevations also with Chamaecyparis obtusa var. formosana, which can form pure stands below 2,500 m, and broad-leaved trees, e.g. Quercus variabilis, Acer spp, and Betula sp. It does not appear to form large pure stands and is in fact often one of the less frequent conifer species in the mixed coniferous forests.

Taiwan spruce can attain large size and is a valuable timber tree, but it has been over-exploited in the past and is now relatively rare. The wood is used for construction, carpentry and furniture making. It was introduced to Europe and the USA by Ernest H. Wilson in 1918, but has remained uncommon in cultivation, mostly found only in arboreta, botanic gardens and large private tree collections, and trees still alive today are often dating back to his first introduction.

This species occurs in several protected areas, but also outside such reserves.

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