Podocarpus

Lore & Background

Podocarpus species are evergreen woody plants, generally trees but sometimes shrubs, with a decumbent growth habit in some shrubby species. The primary branches form pseudowhorls around the trunk, and the bark may be scaly or fibrous with vertical strips. Leaves are simple, flattened, and usually linear-lanceolate or linear-elliptic, with a distinct midrib and stomata restricted to the underside. The genus is generally dioecious, with male pollen cones and female seed cones on separate plants, though some species may be monoecious. The seed cones are highly modified, with two to five fused cone scales that swell into a succulent, brightly colored receptacle at maturity, each cone usually bearing one seed covered by a fleshy epimatium.

Reader's Guide

Podocarpus is significant as the most numerous and widely distributed genus of the Podocarpaceae, with a natural range spanning much of Africa, Asia, Australia, Central and South America, and several South Pacific islands. The genus was endemic to the ancient supercontinent Gondwana and is a characteristic tree of the Antarctic flora, which originated in the cool, moist climate of southern Gondwana. As continents drifted north and became drier, podocarps retreated to humid regions, especially in Australia. The genus has been subject to taxonomic reshuffling, with many species formerly assigned to Podocarpus now placed in other genera such as Afrocarpus, Dacrycarpus, Nageia, and Prumnopitys. Species are cultivated as ornamental plants for parks and large gardens, and the cultivar 'County Park Fire' has won the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. The two subgenera, Podocarpus and Foliolatus, are distinguished by cone and seed morphology, with subgenus Podocarpus distributed in temperate forests of Tasmania, New Zealand, and southern Chile, and subgenus Foliolatus concentrated in tropical and subtropical eastern and southeastern Asia and Malesia.

Did You Know?

• The name Podocarpus comes from Greek 'pous' meaning 'foot' and 'karpós' meaning 'fruit'.
• The fleshy cones attract birds, which eat the cones and disperse the seeds in their droppings.
• As recently as the Late Pliocene, Podocarpus had a range in the Northern United States.
• The cultivar 'County Park Fire' has won the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.