Botanical description ⁴

Bole: Straight/fluted. Large. To 40 m. Bark: Pale brown; thin; fibrous; cracking and peeling in long narrow strips. Slash: Pale yellow. Fibrous. Resinous smell. Leaf: Simple. Opposite/whorled. Petiole: Sessile. Lamina: Small. Juvenile: 0.8 - 1 × 0.1 cm. Adult: 0.1 × 0.1 cm. Lanceolate when young; becoming scales. Cuneate. Acute. Entire. Glabrous. Domatia: Absent. Glands: Present. Juvenile leaves with a linear gland on the back and adult leaves with an elliptic oil gland on the back near the base. Stipules: Absent. Thorns & Spines: Absent. Flower: Cones. Dioecious. Fruit: Brown/black berry-like cone; 0.4 - 0.8 cm in diameter with 1 - 4 seeds.

Biology ⁵

The evergreen African pencil cedar is dioecious (7), meaning that the male and female reproductive structures are borne on separate plants. Pollen, from the tiny cones on the male plants, is carried by the wind to the waxy, berry-like cones of the female plants (7). Fertilised by pollen, the ovules within the female cones develop into brown seeds. The African pencil cedar is believed to produce seeds only every several years (3).

Conservation ⁶

Efforts have been made to ensure the continued survival of this valuable tree; in the late 1970s the African pencil cedar became part of a plantation establishment program of the State Forest Department of Ethiopia, and in the late 1980s, trees were planted at a rate of a few hundred hectares per year (2). The aim of these plantations is to produce the necessary fuelwood and timber for the Ethiopian population, in order to decrease the pressure on remaining natural forests (2). However, to re-establish forests of African pencil cedar in East Africa, it is believed that natural regeneration should be promoted, including protecting young trees from grazing animals (2).

Sources and Credits

1. (c) Robert L. Anderson, USDA Forest Service, some rights reserved (CC BY), https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Juniperus_procera_Kenya1.jpg
2. (c) MBG, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://images.mobot.org/tropicosthumbnails/TropicosImages2/100170000/100170134.jpg
3. (c) MBG, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://images.mobot.org/tropicosthumbnails/TropicosImages2/100170000/100170211.jpg
4. (c) Unknown, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://eol.org/data_objects/23284634
5. (c) Wildscreen, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://eol.org/data_objects/6689586
6. (c) Wildscreen, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://eol.org/data_objects/6689588

More Info

• iNat taxon page
• African Plants - a photo guide
• Biodiversity Heritage Library
• BOLD Systems BIN search
• eFloras.org
• Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)
• HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants
• IPNI (with links to POWO, WFO, and BHL)
• SEINet Symbiota portals
• Tropicos
• World Flora Online

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