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Abies hickelii


  Abies hickelii - Hickel's fir description


 

Scientific name: Abies hickelii  Florus & H. Gaussen  1932

Synonyms: Abies hickelii var. hickelii, Abies religiosa subsp. hickelii (Flous & Gaussen) Strandby, K.I.Chr. & M.Sørensen

Infraspecific taxa: Abies hickelii var. macrocarpa Martínez 1942

Common names: Hickel's fir, Hickel fir (English), Oyamel, Pinabete (Spanish)

 

Description

Tree to 30 m tall, with trunk to 1 m in diameter. Bark gray, darkening and breaking up into blocks with age. Branchlets with transient long hairs in the deep grooves between the leaf bases. Buds 4-5 mm long, covered with thick, yellow resin. Needles thinly or thickly arranged to the sides of the twigs, (1-)2-3.5(-6) cm long, shiny bright green or yellowish green above, the tip notched to bluntly pointed. Individual needles flat in cross section and with (two or) three or four (to six) resin canals scattered around the periphery on either side, touching the lower epidermis but a little inside of the upper epidermis, without or with a few broken lines of stomates near the tip above and with seven to nine lines of stomates in each grayish green stomatal band beneath. Pollen cones 10-15 mm long, red. Seed cones elongate egg-shaped, 6-8(-12) cm long, (2.5-)3.5-4(-5) cm across, purple or green when young, maturing brown. Bracts usually a little longer than the hairy seed scales, and the broad, triangular tip sticking out and up between them. Persistent cone axis narrowly conical. Seed body 6-8(-11) mm long, the wing a little shorter to a little longer. Cotyledons five or six.

The species name honors Paul Robert Hickel (1865-1935), a French dendrologist who published on Abies, not on the Mexican species.

Southern Mexico, primarily in Oaxaca and Chiapas, with outliers in Guerrero, Hidalgo, and Veracruz. Forming pure stands near the top of its elevational range or mixed with pine (Pinus), oak (Quercus), and other conifers and hardwoods on mountain slopes; 2,500-3,000 m.

 

Conservation Status

Red List Category & Criteria: Endangered

 

Varieties: -

 

Attribution from: Conifers Garden


 

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