Picea linzhiensis
Sponsor
Kindly sponsored by
Sir Henry Angest
Credits
Tom Christian (2025)
Recommended citation
Christian, T. (2025), 'Picea linzhiensis' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Common Names
- Linzhi Spruce
- 林芝云杉 (lin zhi yun shan)
Synonyms
- Picea likiangensis var. linzhiensis W.C. Cheng & L.K. Fu
Other taxa in genus
- Picea abies
- Picea × albertiana
- Picea alcoquiana
- Picea asperata
- Picea asperata aggregate
- Picea brachytyla
- Picea breweriana
- Picea chihuahuana
- Picea crassifolia
- Picea engelmannii
- Picea farreri
- Picea × fennica
- Picea glauca
- Picea glehnii
- Picea jezoensis
- Picea koraiensis
- Picea koyamae
- Picea likiangensis
- Picea likiangensis aggregate
- Picea × lutzii
- Picea mariana
- Picea × mariorika
- Picea martinezii
- Picea maximowiczii
- Picea mexicana
- Picea meyeri
- Picea morrisonicola
- Picea neoveitchii
- Picea obovata
- Picea omorika
- Picea orientalis
- Picea polita
- Picea pungens
- Picea purpurea
- Picea rubens
- Picea × saaghii
- Picea schrenkiana
- Picea sitchensis
- Picea smithiana
- Picea spinulosa
- Picea wilsonii
Tree 30–40(–50) m, to 2 m dbh in old trees but usually <1 m. Bark rough, scaly, silvery-grey, with thin brownish fissures. Crown narrowly pyramidal to columnar. First order branches long, slender, spreading or ascending; second order branches variable, not pendulous. Branchlets light brown or slightly orange-brown in first year, becoming greyish in second to fourth years, with dark brown glandular hairs (0.2 mm) in first year, prominently ridged and grooved; pulvini 1 mm, glandular-hairy. Vegetative buds ovoid-conical, bluntly pointed to pointed, 4–5 mm, resinous at the base with thinly resinous or non-resinous chestnut-brown scales, to 0.9 cm, persistent at the base of the first-year shoot. Leaves spreading forwards all around shoot at c. 30° to shoot above, at 60–80° to shoot at the sides, widely parted beneath, 8–20(–25) × 1–1.5 mm, longest in middle of shoot, exceptionally to 30 mm long in middle of shaded shoots, linear, straight or slightly curved, rigid, quadrate-rhombic to transversely rhombic in cross-section, apex pungent, hard; leaf colour glossy green, greyish-green below; stomata on the lower surface only (or very rarely, one or two incomplete rows above), in two greyish-green bands of four to six rows. Pollen cones 2– 2.5 cm long. Seed cones often numerous, oval-oblong, base oblique, apex obtuse, sessile or short obliquely pedunculate, 5–12 × 3–5 cm wide with opened scales; purplish at first, ripening to brown or reddish brown. Seed scales thin, more or less flexible, obovate or rhombic, 1.5–2.2 × 1–1.5 cm at mid-cone; lower surface smooth, glabrous; upper margin obtuse or constricted and incurved, often repand-lacerate at apex; base cuneate. Bracts rudimentary, 2 mm long, entirely included. Seeds ovoid-conical, 2–4 mm long, dark brown; seed wings ovate-oblong 7–14 mm long, light brown. (Farjon 2017; Grimshaw & Bayton 2009; Rushforth 2008).
Distribution China SE Xizang (Tibet) India Arunachal Pradesh (unconfirmed)
Habitat Subalpine forest at 3000–3800 m asl: a scattered minor component of forest dominated by Pinus armandii at lower elevations, becoming more dominant in middle elevations, often with Larix kongboensis and grading into Abies fordei forest at altitude. Common broadleaf associates include Betula pendula subsp. szechuanica, B. utilis, Acer caudatum and Malus baccata agg..
USDA Hardiness Zone 6
RHS Hardiness Rating H6
Conservation status Not evaluated (NE)
For nearly half a century now the spruce forming vast forests in southeastern Tibet has been known by some permutation of the name linzhiensis, the Linzhi Spruce. Most of the early western collectors active in this enigmatic region encountered these trees and mention them in their written works, albeit under a host of other names as they guessed at the true identity. Frank Kingdon-Ward collected this spruce on several occasions and his herbarium specimens, and many of Ludlow & Sherriff’s, are deposited in the Natural History Museum, London. Their labels read like a ‘where’s where’ of Tibetan placenames that will be familiar to anybody interested in the history of botanical exploration here: Chayul, Kongbo, Tsangpo, Oluong and Linzhi all feature (Rushforth 2008).
Linzhi Spruce occurs from about 3000 m to about 3800 m asl. It shows some affinities with Sikkim Spruce, Picea spinulosa, distributed in Sikkim, Bhutan, Arunachal Pradesh, and just getting in to Tibet in the Yatung or Chumbi Valley that projects southward, separating Sikkim from Bhutan. Linzhi Spruce occurs in the Yatung Valley too, separated from Sikkim Spruce by the small matter of a few kilometres and 100 m or so of altitude, and is then widespread throughout southeast Tibet, although its eastern limit is as yet uncertain. It has not been seen in northern Bhutan, but might just cross the border here and there (K. Rushforth pers. comm. 2024).
Recent phylogenetic studies have confirmed a close relationship between Linzhi Spruce and Picea spinulosa, with at least one study (Feng et al. 2018) placing them as sister species. They have in common rounded or rhombic seed scales with a rounded apex (Rushforth 2008). Linzhi Spruce also has clear affinities with Lijiang Spruce (P. likiangensis, distributed in northwest Yunnan and southern Sichuan) in the thin and flexible condition of the seed scales with free, rather than appressed tips (Rushforth 2008). When the Chinese botanists W.C. Cheng and L.K. Fu described Linzhi Spruce in 1975 they treated it as a variety of Lijiang Spruce, viz. P. likiangensis var. linzhiensis, but following extensive fieldwork in the region, and much study of herbarium material, Keith Rushforth demonstrated the Linzhi Spruce is sufficiently distinct – morphologically and ecologically – to merit species rank, and he elevated it to P. linzhiensis in 2008 and this treatment is now broadly recognised (e.g. Plants of the World Online 2024; Farjon 2017; Grimshaw & Bayton 2009).
Picea linzhiensis is represented in western cultivation primarily by the following Keith Rushforth introductions: 3548 from the Dashong La; 3593 from between Gyala and Langpe; 3657 from Nyima La; 3835 from Pasum Tso; 5580 (location unknown); 6288 from between Showa and Bomi; 6334 from Bagu; 6432 from between Nambu La and Pasum Tso; 6788 from Sobhe La (Rushforth 2008).
Notable trees include KR 5580 at White House Farm, Kent 12 m tall × 25 cm dbh in 2019; a pair from KR 5500 at Tregrehan, Cornwall both 9 m × 28 cm in 2024; KR 3548 at RHS Garden Wisley, Surrey, 8.8 m × 17 cm in 2019; and one at Bedgebury National Pinetum, Kent, 7 m × 12 cm in 2024 (Tree Register 2024). Several more grow in Rushforth’s own collections in Devon, and in private gardens including Thenford House and Sandling Park. The species is probably present in a few Irish collections, particularly Seaforde, from collections made by the late Patrick Forde who joined Rushforth on several expeditions to the region.
There is no evidence that early collectors in Tibet introduced living material of Picea linzhiensis. Kingdon-Ward introduced material from West Kameng, Arunachal Pradesh, that may be referable here, but in 2008 Rushforth had not seen material to confirm or refute this supposition (Rushforth 2008); he had also seen no referable material from Zhongdian in northwest Yunnan, where Linzhi Spruce is also reported to occur in the Flora of China. Material gathered on the Kunming-Edinburgh Expedition to Sichan at 3450 m asl in Daocheng County, Sichuan (KEES 254 of 2010) fits P. linzhiensis in the foliage arrangement and glandular hairy shoots (pers. obs. 2010; E00424808) but this location is geographically abberant. This is quite a different pubesence from that of P. likiangensis subsp. balfouriana, which is the spruce one might have expected to find here, but material from northwest Yunnan and southwest Sichuan previously attributed to P. brachytyla var. complanata may also be involved.
