Cathaya
\n| Cathaya |
|---|
\n |
\n |
|---|
\n| \n |
| Species |
|---|
\n| Cathaya argyrophylla |
\n
Cathaya is a genus in family
Pinaceae and has one known, living species,
Cathaya argyrophylla. A second species,
C. nanchuanensis, is now treated as a synonym, as it does not differ from
C. argyrophylla in any characters.
Cathaya is a member of the subfamily Laricoideae, most closely related to
Pseudotsuga and
Larix.
Cathaya is confined to a limited area in southern
China, in the provinces of
Guangxi,
Guizhou,
Hunan and southeast
Sichuan. It is found on steep, narrow
mountain slopes at 950 to 1800 meters altitude, on
limestone soils. A larger population has been reduced by over-cutting.
The needles have ciliate (hairy) tips when young and grow around stems in a spiral pattern.
One or two botanists, unhappy with the idea of a new genus in such a familiar family, tried to shoehorn it into other existing genera, as
Pseudotsuga argyrophylla and
Tsuga argyrophylla. It is however very distinct from both of these genera, and these combinations are not now used.
