Abies chensiensis - Shensi fir description

Scientific name: Abies chensiensis  Van Tieghem  1892

Synonyms: Abies chensiensis subsp. chensiensis

Infraspecific taxa: Abies chensiensis subsp. salouenensis  (Bordères & Gaussen) Rushforth 1984, Abies chensiensis subsp. yulongxueshanensis   Rushforth  1984                               

Common names: Shensi fir, Chinese River fir, Northern Giant fir, Shaanxi fir, Qinling lengshan (Chinese)

Description

Tree to 40(-50) m tall, with trunk to 2 m in diameter. Bark dark gray, splitting into long ridges with age. Branchlets hairless or with a few hairs at first in the grooves between the leaf bases. Buds 7-10 mm long, with a thin coating of resin. Needles arranged to the sides in several rows on lower branches, the upper rows of leaves shorter and angled forward, those of branches with seed cones curving upward above the twigs, 1.5-5(-7) cm long, shiny bright green above, the tip forked on young trees, becoming notched on lower branches, and finally pointed on branches with seed cones. Individual needles widest beyond the middle, plump in cross section with a resin canal on either side near the margins touching the lower epidermis on lower branches, well away from the epidermis on branches bearing seed cones, without stomates in the groove above and with 14-20 lines of stomates in each grayish green stomatal band beneath. Pollen cones 5-10 mm long. Seed cones cylindrical or elongate egg-shaped, (7-)8-11(-14) cm long, 3-5 cm across, green when young, maturing reddish brown. Bracts three-quarters or less as long as the minutely woolly seed scales and hidden by them. Persistent cone axis narrowly conical. Seed body 8-10 mm long, the wing about as long. Cotyledons four to six.

Central and southwestern China (Gansu, Hubei, Sichuan, Xizang (Tibet), Yunnan). In mixed forests with other conifers and a few hardwoods on deep rich soils of mountain valleys and protected slopes; 2,300-3,000(-3,500) m.

Conservation Status

Red List Category & Criteria: Least Concern

Varieties:

Abies chensiensis ’Dax’   
Abies chensiensis ’Extreme dark green’   
Abies chensiensis ’Prostrata’
Abies chensiensis ’Prostrata Glauca’
Abies chensiensis ’Rochester’

Attribution from: Conifers Garden