Cephalotaxus hainanensis Li is a species of tree in the family Cephalotaxaceae.

Protection class

Cephalotaxus hainanensis Li is a Class II national protected plant.

Distribution and habitat

This tree occupies habitat in WuZhi Shan, Jianfeng Ling, LiMu Ling and other areas in Hainan.

It likes to grow in damp places with fertile soil and often occurs in mountain rainforest or monsoon forests 700-1200 meters above sea level. It is not tolerant of drought and barren, and usually interspersed among other trees.

Morphological characteristics

This evergreen tree has erect trunk, 20-25 meters in height and up to 60-110 cm in DBH. The bark is usually caramel or brown with a red and purple tinge, which will gradually flake off. The principal branch has persistent bud scales at the base, with 1 resin tract at the heart of the pith. The leaves are decussate in two columns and thin in texture. The middle and upper part of a leave is slightly curved or straight upward, which is 2-4 cm long and 2.5-3.3 mm broad. The tapering apex and rounded base are also remarkable, with petiole hardly ever seen. Veins on both sides of the leaf rise up from the middle, the upper part being green and the lower part coming with two white stomata belts. Cephalotaxus hainanensis Li is a dioecious plant (occasionally monoecious), with 6-8 terminal spherical male cones subtended by the leaf axil, about 6-9 mm in diameter and supported by the pedicel that is about 4 to 5 mm long. Female cones have long pedicel and grow in axils of bracteole. They are sparsely acrogenous with several pairs of decussate bracteole, each bract with 2 ovules that are supported by a receptacle and usually appear in 2 to 8. The seeds of this plant are clustered at the top of the pedicel and become ripe in the following year. The drooping seeds are all wrapped in fleshy aril, either in obovate-elliptic, oval or obovate shapes, yet slightly flat. A seed is 2.2-3.2 cm long with pointed tips. Mature seeds have red aril.