''Pinus fenzeliana'' commonly known as the Hainan white pine or Fenzel's pine, is a

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, e.g., including only woody plants with secondary growth, only ...

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

to the island of

Hainan Hainan is an island provinces of China, province and the southernmost province of China. It consists of the eponymous Hainan Island and various smaller islands in the South China Sea under the province's administration. The name literally mean ...

off 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 ...

. This

pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. ''World Flora Online'' accepts 134 species-rank taxa (119 species and 15 nothospecies) of pines as cu ...

reaches heights of 20 m with a trunk 1 m in diameter.

Description

The

leaves A leaf (: leaves) is a principal appendage of the stem of a vascular plant, usually borne laterally above ground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, stem, ...

are needle-like, in fascicles of five, and 5–13 cm long. The

seed cone A conifer cone, or in formal botanical usage a strobilus, : strobili, is a seed-bearing organ on gymnosperm plants, especially in conifers and cycads. They are usually woody and variously conic, cylindrical, ovoid, to globular, and have scale ...

s are 6–11 cm long, with thick, woody scales; the seeds are large, about 8–15 mm long, with a vestigial 3 mm wing, similar to the related

Chinese white pine ''Pinus armandii'', the Armand pine or Chinese white pine, is a species of pine native to China, occurring from southern Shanxi west to southern Gansu and south to Yunnan, with outlying populations in Anhui. It grows at altitudes of 2200–3000 ...

(''Pinus armandii''). Hainan white pine differs from that species in the shorter needles, smaller cones, and in being adapted to a

subtropical The subtropical zones or subtropics are geographical zone, geographical and Köppen climate classification, climate zones immediately to the Northern Hemisphere, north and Southern Hemisphere, south of the tropics. Geographically part of the Ge ...

rainforest Rainforests are forests characterized by a closed and continuous tree Canopy (biology), canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforests can be generally classified as tropi ...

habitat. A pine from the

Dabie Mountains The Dabie Mountains () are a major mountain range located in central China. Running northwest-to-southeast, they form the main watershed between the Huai River, Huai and Yangtze rivers. The range also marks the boundary between Hubei Province (n ...

Anhui Anhui is an inland Provinces of China, province located in East China. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze and Huai rivers, bordering Jiangsu and Zhejiang to the east, Jiang ...

, eastern China, first described as a species ''

Pinus dabeshanensis ''Pinus dabeshanensis'', Dabieshan white pine, is a species of pine found only in China. Some sources consider it as a synonym of Chinese white pine (''Pinus armandii''), which it closely resembles. The natural range of ''Pinus dabeshanensis'' ...

'', is occasionally treated as a variety of this species, but more commonly as a variety of ''P. armandii'', which it more closely resembles. Reports of ''Pinus fenzeliana'' from

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 ...

have not been verified; trees in this area have proved to be either

Vietnamese white pine ''Pinus dalatensis'', also known as Vietnamese white pine or Dalat pine, is a species of pine endemic to Indochina. In Vietnam it grows in the mountains of the central and south-central parts of the country at elevations of .Businský, R. (1999). ...

(''Pinus dalatensis'') or

Guangdong white pine ''Pinus wangii'', commonly known as the Guangdong white pine (), is a species of conifer in the family Pinaceae. It was named after Dr. Shao-Ping Wang, a professor of forest genetics. Distribution This pine tree is native to Yunnan Province o ...

(''Pinus wangii''), which both differ markedly in cone and seed size and shape, though similar in foliage.

Description

References

Further reading