About 97–107 species, see list Podocarpus (/ˌpoʊdəˈkɑːrpəs/[2]) is a genus of conifers, the most numerous and widely distributed of the podocarp family, the Podocarpaceae.

The cultivar 'County Park Fire' has won the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.

The infertile basal scales fuse and swell to form a succulent, usually brightly colored receptacle.

[1] Podocarpus and the Podocarpaceae were endemic to the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana, which broke up into Africa, South America, India, Australia-New Guinea, New Zealand, and New Caledonia between 105 and 45 million years ago.

As the continents drifted north and became drier and hotter, podocarps and other members of the Antarctic flora generally retreated to humid regions, especially in Australia, where sclerophyll genera such as Acacia and Eucalyptus became predominant.

Species are distributed in the temperate forests of Tasmania, New Zealand, and southern Chile, with a few occurring in the tropical highlands of Africa and the Americas.

The species are tropical and subtropical, concentrated in eastern and southeastern Asia and Malesia, overlapping with subgenus Podocarpus in northeastern Australia and New Caledonia.

P. atjehensis (Wasscher) de Laubenfels P. nubigenus Lindley P. nivalis Hooker P. acutifolius Kirk P. totara Benn.

P. salicifolius Klotzsch & Karsten ex Endlicher P. chingianus Hu P. pilgeri Foxworthy P. neriifolius Don P. lophatus de Laubenfels P. nakaii Hayata P. laubenfelsii Tiong P. forrestii Craib & Smith P. fasciculus de Laubenfels P. macrophyllus (Thunberg) Sweet Male Podocarpus spp.

Conversely, completely female Podocarpus plants have an OPALS rating of 1, and are considered "allergy-fighting", as they capture pollen while producing none.

The earliest use of P. elongatus dates back to the southern African Middle Stone Age where it was used to produce an adhesive by distillation.

[16] Today, several species of Podocarpus are grown as garden trees, or trained into hedges, espaliers, or screens.

In the novel Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton, Podocarpus trees (misspelled as "protocarpus") were used on Isla Nublar, Costa Rica, to conceal electric fences from visitors.

The red, purple, or bluish fleshy cone (popularly called a "fruit") of most species of Podocarpus are edible, raw or cooked into jams or pies.

[18] Some species of Podocarpus are used in systems of traditional medicine for conditions such as fevers, coughs, arthritis, sexually transmitted diseases, and canine distemper.