User:DavidAnstiss/Corylus wangii

Corylus wangii (Weixi hazel) is a species of hazelnut found only in China. It is a small tree or shrub.

Description
The flowers have triangular shaped petals. The round nuts which are encased in a very tough oval shaped shell and can be consumed by humans. The plant is not commercially grown for the nuts, rather they are sometimes used as ornamental plants. They are located in Western Guizhou, Hubei, South Western and Western Sichuan, and Western Yunnan.

The similar Corylus jacquemontii, from the Himalayas, differs in having bract lobes ovate-lanceolate, usually not reflexed, without lobules.

Trees small, to 7 m tall. Branchlets purplish brown, pilose and stipitate glandular when young, soon glabrous, with scattered, white lenticels. Petiole 7-20 cm, slender, pilose and stipitate glandular; leaf blade oblong or ovate-oblong, rarely obovate-oblong, 5-10 × 2.5-7 cm, papery, abaxially pubescent along veins, adaxially glabrous or sparsely pilose, base subcordate or obliquely subcordate, margin sharply and doubly serrate, apex acuminate to caudate-acuminate; lateral veins 9-13 on each side of midvein. Female flowers 4-8 in a cluster; peduncle ca. 1 cm, villous; bracts campanulate, 3-3.5 cm, striate, yellow tomentose when young, glabrescent, densely stipitate glandular, apex deeply divided into linear lobes, lobes often reflexed, ca. 2 cm × 2 mm, forked and pinnately lobulate. Nut ovoid-globose, ca. 1.5 cm in diam., glabrous. Fl. Jun-Aug, fr. Aug-Sep. The similar Corylus jacquemontii Decaisne, from the Himalayas, differs in having bract lobes ovate-lanceolate, usually not reflexed, without lobules.

Coryloid reproductive remains (Betulaceae, subfamily Coryloideae) are documented from the middle Eocene Republic flora of northeastern Washington State and the Princeton flora of southern British Columbia. The oldest confirmed examples of two modern genera, Corylus johnsonii sp. nov., and Carpinus perryae sp. nov., are reported from the Republic flora, and three new species of the extinct genus Palaeocarpinus, Palaeocarpinus barksdaleae sp. nov., Palaeocarpinus stonebergae Pigg, Manchester & Wehr sp. nov., and Palaeocarpinus dentatus (Penhallow) Pigg, Manchester & Wehr comb, nov., are described from Republic, Washington; Princeton, British Columbia; and Stump Lake, British Columbia, respectively. Corylus johnsonii resembles three extant Asian species: Corylus wangii, Corylus ferox, and Corylus heterophylla. Involucres of this fossil species vary from being highly dissected and spiny like C. wangii and C. ferox to more laminar like C. heterophylla. This similarity is interesting because C. ferox and perhaps also C. wangii are members of section Acanthochlamys, thought to be basal within the genus. Carpinus perryae has asymmetric leaf-like bracts that partly enclose an ovate nutlet and, thus, fits within the extant Carpinus subgenus Carpinus, a group with Asian, European, and North American affinities today. Palaeocarpinus, thought to be basal within the Coryloideae, is reported from several Eocene localities in the Okanogan Highlands. These occurrences demonstrate that this primarily Paleocene, extinct genus extended into the Eocene in western North America as it did in Asia. Associated staminate catkins containing coryloid pollen and Corylus-like leaves also occur at Republic along with P. barksdaleae. The presence in the Okanogan Highlands floras of a suite of coryloid plants including both extinct and extant genera demonstrates that, like the birch subfamily Betuloideae, the subfamily Coryloideae was also a significant and diverse group in western North America during the middle Eocene.

Medium - small shrub, up to 7m tall, husks are campulate, about twice as long as the nut, deeply divided on the upper end into long, narrow, re-curved lobes about 2 cm long and covered with thorns. There are about 4-5 nuts per cluster. Trees are planted as an ornamental because of the peculiar shape of the husks. Its value for breeding cultivars or rootstock is unknown due to unavailability of germplasm to researchers in the east. One of the Missing species from NDP "Sofiyivka" (like C.fargesii and c.yunnanensis) National Denrological Park of Ukraine

Taxonomy
It is written as 维西榛 in Chinese script, and known as wei xi zhen in Pidgin in China. 'Zhong ya yuan wei' is translated into English as 'central Asian iris', or 'central iris'.

The Latin specific epithet wangii refers to

It was then first described and published by Chinese botanist Hsen Hsu Hu in Bulletin of the Fan Memorial Institute of Biology, Botany (Bull. Fan Mem. Inst. Biol. Bot.) Vol.8 an page 31 in 1937.

Corylus wangii Hu, Bull. Fan Mem. Inst. Biol., n.s. 8: 31. 1938. 维西榛 wei xi zhen

Bulletin of the Fan Memorial Institute of Biology, Botany 8: 31 (Hu 1937). – Type: China, Yunnan, Weisi Hsein, Yeh-Chih, 3400 m a.s.l., Aug. 1935, C.W. Wang 68243 (lecto-, designated by Lin et al. 2007: 1249: PE01062681!; isolecto-: A00033785!, K000859895!, P01903232!, PE01062680!). – Note: Corylus wangii was recognized in the Flora of China (Li & Skvortsov 1999) and the World Checklist and Bibliography of Fagales (Govaerts & Frodin 1998). Hu (1948: 149), on the other hand, regarded his species as synonymous to C. jacquemontii Decne. However, C. wangii has an involucre with many glandular trichomes, while C. jaquemontii is eglandular. Both C. jacquemontii and C. wangii have long laciniate involucre apices, but these are sometimes divided in the latter. This latter character is very well developed in C. ferox. The involucre of C. wangii are thus strikingly similar to C. × spinescens Rehder, an artificial hybrid between C. ferox var. tibetica and C. avellana.

Distribution and habitat
C. wangii is native to temperate areas of Asia.

Range
It is found in China, within the the Chinese province of Yunnan, including in the Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture.

Endemic to China this species is known only in northwest Yunnan. However, a reported collection from eastern Sichuan province (Fangmachang of Hongshi Ba, Wuxi County) was obtained in October 1988 by Yaodong Chen, Xintang Ma and Lianzhong Fu. Lower elevation limit (metres):	3000 Upper elevation limit (metres):	4000 This species occurs as a tree to seven metres tall in temperate broad-leaved forests.

Found in Weixi Mountains in Weixi Lisu Autonomous County, in Diqing Prefecture, Yunnan province, China. 2300-4500 m altitudes

Habitat
Temperate broad-leaved forests; ca. 3000 m. NW Yunnan (Weixi Xian).

it is found at altitudes between 1800 and 3000 m above sea level,

Conservation
In the Chinese Red List (2014) this species is assessed as Vulnerable. However, there is very little information available about this species. It is therefore assessed here as Data Deficient.

An endangered species.