Phyllocladus alpinus Hook. f.

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Phyllocladus alpinus' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/phyllocladus/phyllocladus-alpinus/). Accessed 2025-01-12.

Genus

Phyllocladus

Common Names

Celery Pine

Infraspecifics

'Silver Blades'

Other taxa in genus

Glossary

apex: (pl. apices) Tip. apical At the apex.
nut: Dry indehiscent single-seeded fruit with woody outer wall.
ovate: Egg-shaped; broadest towards the stem.
variety: (var.) Taxonomic rank (varietas) grouping variants of a species with relatively minor differentiation in a few characters but occurring as recognisable populations. Often loosely used for rare minor variants more usefully ranked as forms.

References

There are no active references in this article.

Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Phyllocladus alpinus' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/phyllocladus/phyllocladus-alpinus/). Accessed 2025-01-12.

Phyllocladus alpinus foliage with developing female cones. Linn Botanic Gardens, Argyll, UK. August 2022. Image Tom Christian.

An evergreen shrub or small tree from 8 to 25 ft high, but in exposed alpine localities, according to Cheeseman, often reduced to a bush 3 to 6 ft high. The ‘leaves’ are usually very crowded and vary much in shape and size. On scrubby bushes growing on the mountains at 5,000 ft elevation the ‘leaves’ are small and narrow, 1⁄2 to 3⁄4 in. long and 1⁄8 to 1⁄4 in. wide. But at lower elevations and growing under more favourable circumstances they are as much as 11⁄2 in. long and 3⁄4 in. wide, ovate to rhomboid in shape, sometimes pinnately lobed, often merely irregularly toothed. Nuts produced a few together, each nut about the size of a radish seed, the apex exposed.

Native of the North and South Islands of New Zealand, most abundant at elevations of 1,500 to over 5,000 ft. It differs from the other two New Zealand species (P. glaucus and P. trichomanoides) in the irregularly disposed branchlets and ‘leaves’, those two species having them pinnately arranged. It is more closely related to the Tasmanian P. asplenifolius. Although the hardiest of the genus, its rather congested growth and crowded ‘leaves’ make it the least elegant and effective. It has attained a height of 11 ft in the National Pinetum at Bedgebury, Kent.

From the Supplement (Vol. V)

It was mentioned that this species is closely allied to the Tasmanian P. asplenifolius. It is made a variety of it by H. Keng.

Phyllocladus alpinus foliage with developing female cones. Linn Botanic Gardens, Argyll, UK. August 2022. Image Tom Christian.

Sub-alpine habitat of Phyllocladus alpinus above Arthur's Pass Village, New Zealand. The grey-green domes of Phyllocladus can be picked out in the centre and left of this image; the brighter pale green domes on the right are Brachyglottis buchananii, and the brown shrub especially evident in the foreground is Dracophyllum cf. longifolium. 19 November 2023. Image Tom Christian.

Phyllocladus alpinus in habitat in the sub-alpine zone above Arthur's Pass Village, New Zealand. 19 November 2023. Image Tom Christian.

Female strobili on a tree of Phyllocladus alpinus thriving at Tillypronie, at over 300 m in the eastern Cairngorms of Aberdeenshire; 24th May 2007. Image Owen Johnson.

A shapely Phyllocladus alpinus (University of British Columbia Botanical Garden, Vancouver, June 2023). Image John Grimshaw.

'Silver Blades'

‘Leaves’ (phylloclades) silvery blue. Raised by Messrs Hillier and put into commerce in 1968. They state that the colour is best developed under glass.