''Carya poilanei'' is a very large species of

hickory Hickory is a common name for trees composing the genus ''Carya'', which includes 19 species accepted by ''Plants of the World Online''. Seven species are native to southeast Asia in China, Indochina, and northeastern India (Assam), and twelve ...

native to northern

Laos Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic (LPDR), is the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by Myanmar and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the southeast, and Thailand to the west and ...

, northern

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

, and southern

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. It was first described by

Auguste Jean Baptiste Chevalier Auguste Jean Baptiste Chevalier (June 1873, in Domfront, Orne, Domfront – June 1956, in Paris) was a French botanist, taxonomist, and explorer of tropical Africa, especially of French colonial empire in Africa that included Côte d'Ivoire. He a ...

, and given its current name by

André Leroy André Leroy (born 30 August 1801 in Angers; died 23 July 1875) was a French botanist and nurseryman. Biography He was born into a large family of gardeners. He took over the management of the family farm, founded in 1780, in 1822.. When he died, ...

. ''Carya poilanei'' is part of the genus ''

Carya Hickory is a common name for trees composing the genus ''Carya'', which includes 19 species accepted by ''Plants of the World Online''. Seven species are native to southeast Asia in China, Indochina, and northeastern India (Assam), and twelve ...

'', and the family

Juglandaceae The Juglandaceae are a plant family known as the walnut family. They are trees, or sometimes shrubs, in the order Fagales. Members of this family are native to the Americas, Eurasia, and Southeast Asia. The nine or ten genera in the family have ...

Description

The species grows up to 15 to 40 meters tall. It is deciduous and monoecious.

Habitat

The species grows on southeastern and southern slopes of limestone or calcareous mountains at elevations of 1000 to 2050 meters.

Range

Prior to 2021, it was only known from Laos and Vietnam (and a previously undocumented specimen collected in Thailand). Its original localities had been affected by repeated deforestation events, and it was thus not observed in these sites for over 63 years, raising fears that it had been driven to extinction. However, in 2021, three fragmented subpopulations of this species were discovered on the eastern edge of the

Ailao Mountains The Ailao Mountains are located in Yunnan, China. They extend northward from the Yun range, and are located at the intersection of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, the Tibetan Plateau, and the Hengduan Mountains. The Ailao Mountain Nature Reserv ...

Yunnan Province Yunnan; is an inland Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 47.2 million (as of 2020). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces ...

, China. The populations contained about 50 total adult trees, some gigantic in size, as well as some seedlings and saplings. These populations are located relatively close to villages, but the trees are considered sacred by villagers due to their large size and are thus not at risk of being cut down. Due to its very low population and fragmented distribution, it has been recommended that this species be classified as

Critically Endangered An IUCN Red List critically endangered (CR or sometimes CE) species is one that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. As of December 2023, of t ...

on the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is an inventory of the global conservation status and extinction risk of biological ...

References

World Plants: Synonymic Checklists of the Vascular Plants of the World
/ref> {{Taxonbar, from=Q15376360 poilanei Flora of Laos Flora of Vietnam Flora of Thailand Flora of Yunnan Taxa named by Auguste Chevalier