I have not found any photographs of living plants. Mill (2015) provides excellent line drawings.
I have not found any photographs of living plants. Mill (2015) provides excellent line drawings.
Podocarpus victorinianus
Sabina cimarrona (also applied to Podocarpus angustifolius and P. ekmanii) (Mill 2015).
Type: Cuba, Guantánamo, Monte Verde, 1860.09.17, C. Wright 1461 p.p. [holo GH, specimen mounted on left half of sheet bar-coded 22530]. See Mill (2015) for a lengthy discussion of issues with C. Wright 1461.
Synonymy:
It is not really known whether Podocarpus victorinianus and P. leonii, both described on the same page by the same author, are phylogenetically distinct taxa. Both are known from very few specimens, and available data consist only of some herbarium sheets and notes thereon; no molecular analyses have been done. The most recent collections date to 1924. Since their description, both taxa have usually been placed into synonymy with other Caribbean podocarps, but they do show a consistently distinct morphology, especially in leaf characters. The morphological points of similarity between the two taxa, though, are inconclusive, and it does not help that the type collection (and perhaps other collections) bear material from at least two different species. It is likely that more collections, more fieldwork, and/or molecular analysis will be needed to determine the existence and status of these taxa (Mill 2015), and we may hope that they have not become extinct during the past century.
See Podocarpus angustifolius for notes on phylogenetic relationships between the Caribbean species of Podocarpus.
Dioecious evergreen shrub, or tree to 10 m tall, with a crown of irregularly spirally arranged branches. Bark smooth to rough, flaking, forming thin vertical strips; outer bark grayish brown; inner bark purplish; wood pale brown, fibrous. Twigs divergent at 57-70°, up to 65 mm long, straight or slightly zigzag, first greenish brown, turning grayish brown by the third year. Buds ovoid, 3.5-4.2 × 1.8-2.5 mm, with 8-12 scales, the inner ones longer than bud diameter, also longer than the outer ones, lanceolate to broad-ovate, not keeled, greenish brown, all erect or the outermost recurved or reflexed. Juvenile leaves not seen. Adult leaves spirally arranged, petiole <2 mm, twisted at base, diverging at 45-90°, glossy deep green or olive green above, matte green below, narrowly oblong-elliptic, at shoot tips sometimes obovate, 23-47 × 6-11 mm, length/width ratio 3.5-4.7, straight, thick and coriaceous, margins narrowly revolute or thickened; upper midrib obscure; lower midrib not or proximally and indistinctly raised, with indistinct striate band on either side; apex acute, aristate; base decurrent, asymmetric, cuneate to short-attenuate. Pollen cones not seen. Seed cones axillary, solitary, lateral, on a 3-4.5 mm peduncle; receptacle fleshy and very obvious if becoming swollen but not always swelling at maturity, asymmetrical, obovoid, highly variable in size (5-24 mm along longest edge), formed from 1 fertile and 2 sterile scales, the lower sterile scale nearly free from other two and shortly pungent-aristate; both sterile bracts entire, all three bracts keeled with free tips, purplish or blackish purple when dry (fresh cones not seen). Epimatium swollen, greenish. Seed 7.8-10 × 3.9-5 mm, ellipsoid or ovoid, laterally compressed, crested; seed coat greenish, slightly wrinkled. Female cones have been collected between July and August (summer dry season) but the timing of leaf flushing and formation of male cones are currently not known. Seed maturation one year after pollination (Mill 2015).
Podocarpus victorinianus is most clearly distinguished from the other Cuban species of Podocarpus by its broad leaves, normally 6-11 mm wide with a length-width ratio of only 3-5:1. The most similar species is P. aristulatus in which the midrib is prominently raised on the lower surface, whereas in P. victorinianus it is obscure on both surfaces. P. ekmanii has much smaller and narrower leaves, while P. angustifolius has long, very narrow leaves, always less than 6 mm wide (Mill 2015).
Cuba, prov. Guantánamo, known only from 8 collections in the years 1860 to 1924; not known to be extant. Collection notes indicate the specimens were found in ridge forest on serpentine or limestone soils at 700-1230 m elevation (Mill 2015).
Distribution data for all species native to the Caribbean, based on confirmed specimens cited by Mill (2015), using data from herbarium sheets. Data include both latitude/longitude and narrative location descriptions; coordinate uncertainty generally <5000 m. Podocarpus victorinianus shown in black.
The IUCN does not recognize this species, placing it into synonymy with P. angustifolius. Mill (2015) proposes that it would be classified as "Endangered", based mainly on a limited extent of occurrence, but he also notes that even at the time of the recorded collections the population must have been severely fragmented, and there has been substantial further habitat loss since that time. I also note that GBIF (accessed 2023.01.18) still lists no collections of P. victorinianus or P. leonii since Mill's work was published. At this time the most likely result is that this taxon is now extinct in the wild.
No data as of 2023.01.18.
No uses have been recorded (Mill 2015).
There are no known extant occurrences, neither in the wild nor in cultivation.
The epithet honors Frère Joseph-Louis Marie-Victorin, born Joseph Louis Conrad Kirouac (1885–1944), at one time director of the Montreal Botanic Garden (and a relative of the American author Jack Kerouac). During fieldwork in Cuba, he befriended the two future authors of the Flora de Cuba (Mill 2015).
Carabia, J. P. 1941. Contribuciones al estudio de flora Cubana. Gymnospermae. Caribbean Forester 2:92. Available: Biodiversity Heritage Library, accessed 2023.01.17.
Mill, R. R. 2015. A monographic revision of the genus Podocarpus (Podocarpaceae): II. The species of the Caribbean bioregion. Edinburgh Journal of Botany 72 (1):61–185. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0960428614000328.
Plants of the World Online, accessed 2023.01.18.
Stark Schilling, Darian M., and Robert R. Mill. 2011. Cuticle micromorphology of Caribbean and Central American species of Podocarpus (Podocarpaceae). International Journal of Plant Sciences 172(5):601–31. https://doi.org/10.1086/659460.
Last Modified 2023-02-26
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