Cupressaceae

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Cupressaceae

The Cupressaceae or cypress

Cypress

Cypress is the name applied to many plants in the Pinophyta family Cupressaceae . Most plants which bear the common name cypress are in the genera Cupressus and Chamaecyparis, but several other genera in the family also carry the name, including:...
family is a conifer family with worldwide distribution. The family includes 27 to 30 genera (17 monotypic) with about 130-140 species. They are monoecious

Plant sexuality

Plant sexuality covers the wide variety of sexual reproduction systems found across the plant kingdom. This article describes Morphology aspects of sexual reproduction of plants....
, subdioecious

Plant sexuality

Plant sexuality covers the wide variety of sexual reproduction systems found across the plant kingdom. This article describes Morphology aspects of sexual reproduction of plants....
tree

TREE

TREE was a Boston hardcore punk band formed in the summer of 1990. They were active in the Boston music scene until disbanding in 2002....
s and shrub

Shrub

A shrub or bush is a horticulture rather than strictly Botany category of woody plant, distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and lower height, usually less than 5-6 m tall....
s from 1-116 m (3-379 ft) tall. The bark

BARK

BARK was an early Electromechanics. BARK was built using standard phone relays, implementing a 32-bit binary machine and could perform addition in 150 ms and multiplication in 250 ms....
of mature trees is commonly orange- to red- brown and of stringy texture, often flaking or peeling in vertical strips, but smooth, scaly or hard and square-cracked in some species.

The leaves

Leaf

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Encyclopedia

The Cupressaceae or cypress

Cypress

Plant sexuality

Plant sexuality covers the wide variety of sexual reproduction systems found across the plant kingdom. This article describes Morphology aspects of sexual reproduction of plants....
tree

TREE

TREE was a Boston hardcore punk band formed in the summer of 1990. They were active in the Boston music scene until disbanding in 2002....
s and shrub

Shrub

BARK

The leaves

Leaf

In botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant Organ specialized for photosynthesis. For this purpose, a leaf is typically flat and thin, to expose the cells containing chloroplast to light over a broad area, and to allow light to penetrate fully into the tissues....
are arranged either spirally, in decussate pairs (opposite pairs, each pair at 90° to the previous pair) or in decussate whorls of 3 or 4, depending on the genus. On young plants, the leaves are needle-like, becoming small and scale-like on mature plants of many (but not all) genera; some genera and species retain needle-like leaves throughout their life. Old leaves are mostly not shed individually, but in small sprays of foliage (cladoptosis
Cladoptosis

Cladoptosis refers to the phenomenon in botany of the regular shedding of branches. It is the counterpart for branches of the familiar process of regular leaf shedding by deciduous trees....
); exceptions are the leaves on shoots which develop into branches, which eventually fall off individually when the bark starts to flake. Most are evergreen

Evergreen

In botany, an evergreen plant is a plant having leaf all year round. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage for part of the year....
with the leaves persisting 2-10 years, but three genera (Glyptostrobus, Metasequoia, Taxodium) are deciduous

Deciduous

Deciduous means falling off at maturity or tending to fall off and is typically used in reference to trees or shrubs that lose their leaves seasonally and to the shedding of other plant structures such as petals after flowering or fruit when ripe....
or include deciduous species.

The seed cones

Conifer cone

A cone is an organ on plants in the division Pinophyta that contains the plant sexuality structures. The familiar woody cone is the female cone, which produces seeds....
are either woody, leathery, or (in Juniper
Juniper

Junipers are coniferous plants in the genus Juniperus of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on taxonomic viewpoint, there are between 50-67 species of juniper, widely distributed throughout the northern hemisphere, from the Arctic, south to tropical Africa in the Old World, and to the mountains of Central America....
us) berry-like and fleshy, with one to several ovules per scale. The bract scale and ovuliferous scale are fused together except at the apex, where the bract scale is often visible as a short spine (often called an umbo) on the ovuliferous scale. As with the foliage, the cone scales are arranged spirally, decussate (opposite) or whorled, depending on the genus. The seed

Seed

A seed is a small Plant embryogenesis plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some Food storage. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant....
s are mostly small and somewhat flattened, with two narrow wings, one down each side of the seed; rarely (e.g. Actinostrobus) triangular in section with three wings; in some genera (e.g. Glyptostrobus, Libocedrus) one of the wings is significantly larger than the other, and in some others (e.g. Juniperus, Microbiota, Platycladus, Taxodium) the seed is larger and wingless. The seedlings usually have two cotyledon

Cotyledon

A cotyledon is a significant part of the embryo within the seed of a plant. Upon germination, the cotyledon may become the embryonic first leaf of a seedling....
s, but in some species up to six. The pollen

Pollen

Pollen is a fine to coarse powder consisting of Gametophyte , which produce the male gametes of spermatophyta. A hard coat covering the pollen grain protects the sperm cells during the process of their movement between the stamens of the flower to the pistil of the next flower....
cones are more uniform in structure across the family, 1-20 mm long, with the scales again arranged spirally, decussate (opposite) or whorled, depending on the genus; they may be borne singly at the apex of a shoot (most genera), in the leaf axils (Cryptomeria), in dense clusters (Cunninghamia; Juniperus drupacea), or on discrete long pendulous panicle

Panicle

A panicle is a compound raceme, a loose, much-branched Indeterminate growth inflorescence with Pedicel flowers attached along the secondary branches ....
-like shoots (Metasequoia, Taxodium).

Cupressaceae is the most widely distributed conifer family, with a near-global range in all continents except for Antarctica

Antarctica

Antarctica is Earth's southernmost continent, overlying the South Pole. It is situated in the Antarctica of the southern hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean....
, stretching from 71°N in arctic Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a constitutional monarchy in Northern Europe that occupies the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula....
(Juniperus communis
Juniperus communis

Juniperus communis, the Common Juniper, is a species in the genus Juniperus, in the family Cupressaceae. It has the largest range of any woody plant, throughout the cool temperate Northern Hemisphere from the Arctic south in mountains to around 30?N latitude in North America, Europe and Asia....
) south to 55°S in southernmost Chile

Chile

Chile, officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long and narrow coastal strip wedged between the Andes mountains and the Pacific Ocean....
(Pilgerodendron uviferum
Pilgerodendron

Pilgerodendron is a genus of Pinophyta belonging to the cypress family Cupressaceae. It has only one species, Pilgerodendron uviferum, and is endemic to the Valdivian temperate rain forests and Magellanic subpolar forests of southern Chile and southwestern Argentina....
), while Juniperus indica
Juniperus indica

Juniperus indica is a juniper native to high altitudes in the Himalaya, occurring from the northern Indus River Valley in Kashmir east to western Yunnan in China....
reaches 5200 m altitude in Tibet

Tibet

Tibet is a Tibetan Plateau in Asia, north of the Himalayas, and the home to the indigenous Tibetan people and its related ethnic groups. With an average elevation of 4,900 metres , it is the highest region on Earth and has in recent decades increasingly been referred to as the "Roof of the World"....
, the highest altitude reported for any woody plant

Woody plant

A woody plant is a Vascular tissue plant that has a Perennial plant Plant stem that is above ground and covered by a layer of thickened bark. Woody plants are adapted to survive from one year to the next; the stem supports continued vegetative growth above ground from one year to next....
. Most habitats on land are occupied, with the exceptions of polar tundra

Tundra

In physical geography, tundra is an biome where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons. The term tundra comes from Kildin Sami tund?r, which means "uplands, treeless mountain tract." There are two types of tundra: Arctic tundra and alpine tundra....
and tropical lowland rainforest

Rainforest

Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions setting minimum normal annual rainfall between 1750?2000 mm . The monsoon trough, alternately known as the intertropical convergence zone, plays a significant role in creating Earth's tropical rain forests....
(though several species are important components of temperate rainforests and tropical highland cloud forest

Cloud forest

A cloud forest, also called a fog forest, is a generally tropical or subtropical evergreen montane Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests characterized by a high incidence of low-level cloud cover, usually at the canopy level....
s); they are also rare in desert

Désert

?D?sert? is ?milie Simon's debut single, released in October 2002. The song was a huge success both critically and commercially in her homeland....
s, with only a few species able to tolerate severe drought, notably Cupressus dupreziana
Cupressus dupreziana

Cupressus dupreziana, the Saharan Cypress, is a very rare Pinophyta tree native to the Tassili n'Ajjer mountains in the central Sahara Desert, southeast Algeria, where it forms a unique population of trees hundreds of kilometres from any other trees....
in the central Sahara

Sahara

The Sahara is the world's largest hot desert. At over 9,000,000 square kilometers , it covers most of Northern Africa, making it almost as large as the United States or the continent of Europe....
. Despite the wide overall distribution, many genera and species show very restricted relictual distributions, and many are endangered species

Endangered species

An endangered species is a population of an organism which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters....
.

Classification

The family Cupressaceae is now widely regarded as including the Taxodiaceae

Taxodiaceae

The Taxodiaceae was at one time regarded as a distinct plant family comprising the following ten genera of coniferous trees:*Athrotaxis*Cryptomeria...
, previously treated as a distinct family, but now shown not to differ from the Cupressaceae in any consistent characteristics. The one exception in the former Taxodiaceae is the genus Sciadopitys
Sciadopitys

The Koyamaki or Japanese Umbrella-pine, is a unique conifer endemic to Japan. It is the sole member of the family Sciadopityaceae and genus Sciadopitys, a living fossil with no close relatives, and known in the fossil record for about 230 million years....
, which is genetically distinct from the rest of the Cupressaceae, and is now treated in its own family, Sciadopityaceae
Sciadopitys

The Koyamaki or Japanese Umbrella-pine, is a unique conifer endemic to Japan. It is the sole member of the family Sciadopityaceae and genus Sciadopitys, a living fossil with no close relatives, and known in the fossil record for about 230 million years....
.

The family Cupressaceae is divided into seven subfamilies, based on genetic and morphological analysis (Gadek et al. 2000, Farjon 2005):
Cunninghamhioideae (Zucc. ex Endl.) Quinn: Cunninghamia
Taiwanioideae L.C.Li: Taiwania
Athrotaxidoideae L.C.Li: Athrotaxis
Sequoioideae Saxton: Sequoia, Sequoiadendron, Metasequoia
Taxodioideae Endl. ex K.Koch: Taxodium, Glyptostrobus, Cryptomeria
Callitroideae Saxton: Callitris, Actinostrobus, Neocallitropsis, Widdringtonia, Diselma, Fitzroya, Austrocedrus, Libocedrus, Pilgerodendron, Papuacedrus
Cupressoideae Rich. ex Sweet: Thuja, Thujopsis, Chamaecyparis, Fokienia, Calocedrus, Tetraclinis, Microbiota, Platycladus, Callitropsis, Cupressus, Juniperus

Superlatives
The family is notable for including the largest, tallest, and stoutest individual trees in the world, and also the second longest lived species in the world:
Largest - Giant Sequoia
Sequoiadendron

Sequoiadendron giganteum is the sole species in the genus Sequoiadendron, and one of three species of coniferous trees known as Redwood , classified in the family Cupressaceae in the subfamily Cupressaceae#Classification, together with Sequoia and Metasequoia ....
, 1486.9 m³ trunk volume
Tallest - Coast Redwood
Sequoia

Sequoia sempervirens is the sole living species of the genus Sequoia in the cypress family Cupressaceae . Common names include Coast Redwood and California Redwood ....
, 115.55 m tall
Stoutest - Montezuma Cypress
Taxodium mucronatum

Taxodium mucronatum, also known as Montezuma Cypress, Sabino, Ahuehuete , is a species of Taxodium native to much of Mexico , and also southernmost Texas, USA ....
or Ahuehuete, 11.42 m diameter
Second oldest - Alerce
Fitzroya

Fitzroya is a genus in the cypress family Cupressaceae with a single species, Fitzroya cupressoides native to the Andes mountains of southern Chile and adjoining Argentina, where it is an important member of the Valdivian temperate rain forests....
, 3622 years (after Great Basin Bristlecone Pine
Great Basin Bristlecone Pine

Pinus longaeva, the Great Basin Bristlecone Pine, is a long living species of tree found in the higher mountains of the southwest United States....
)

Uses
Many of the species are important timber
Timber

Timber may refer to:* Lumber, i.e. wood materials* Timber, Oregon, an unincorporated community in the U.S. state of Oregon* Timber , a 1984 arcade game by Bally Midway...
sources, especially in the genera Calocedrus, Chamaecyparis, Cryptomeria, Cunninghamia, Cupressus, Sequoia, Taxodium, and Thuja. These and several other genera are also important in horticulture. Juniper
Juniper

Junipers are coniferous plants in the genus Juniperus of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on taxonomic viewpoint, there are between 50-67 species of juniper, widely distributed throughout the northern hemisphere, from the Arctic, south to tropical Africa in the Old World, and to the mountains of Central America....
s are among the most important evergreen shrubs, groundcovers and small evergreen trees, with hundreds of cultivar
Cultivar

A cultivar is a cultivated plant that has been selected and given a unique name because of its decorative or useful characteristics; it is usually distinct from similar plants and when Plant propagation it retains those characteristics....
s selected, including plants with blue, grey, or yellow foliage. Chamaecyparis and Thuja also provide hundreds of dwarf
Dwarfing

In horticulture dwarfing is considered a desirable characteristic in modern orchards, where genetic dwarfs may be selected and propagated, or more often, scions are graftinged on to dwarfing rootstocks....
cultivars as well as trees, including Lawson's Cypress
Chamaecyparis lawsoniana

Chamaecyparis lawsoniana is a cypress in the genus Chamaecyparis, family Cupressaceae, known by the name Lawson's Cypress in the horticultural trade, or Port Orford-cedar in its native range ....
and the infamous hybrid Leyland Cypress
Leyland Cypress

The Leyland Cypress, X Cupressocyparis leylandii , is often referred to as just Leylandii. It is a fast-growing evergreen tree much used in horticulture, primarily for hedges and screens....
. Dawn Redwood
Metasequoia

Metasequoia is a fast growing tree genus in the pinophyta family Cupressaceae of which Metasequoia glyptostroboides, native to the Sichuan-Hubei region of China, is the only living species....
is widely planted as an ornamental tree because of its excellent horticultural qualities, rapid growth and status as a living fossil
Living fossil

Living fossil is an informal term for any living species of organism which appears to be the same as a species otherwise only known from fossils and which has no close living relatives....
. Giant Sequoia
Sequoiadendron

Sequoiadendron giganteum is the sole species in the genus Sequoiadendron, and one of three species of coniferous trees known as Redwood , classified in the family Cupressaceae in the subfamily Cupressaceae#Classification, together with Sequoia and Metasequoia ....
is a popular ornamental tree and is occasionally grown for timber. Giant Sequoia, Leyland Cypress, and Arizona Cypress are grown to a small extent as Christmas tree
Christmas tree

File:Christmas Tree.JPGThe Christmas tree is one of the most popular traditions associated with the celebration of Christmas. Normally an evergreen Pinophyta tree that is brought into a home or used in the open, a Christmas tree is decorated with Christmas lights and colourful Christmas ornaments during the days around Christmas....
s.

Sugi
Cryptomeria

Cryptomeria is a genus of Pinophyta in the Cupressaceae family Cupressaceae formerly belonging to the family Taxodiaceae; it includes only one species, Cryptomeria japonica ....
(Cryptomeria japonica) is the national tree of Japan
Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south....
, and Ahuehuete
Taxodium mucronatum

Taxodium mucronatum, also known as Montezuma Cypress, Sabino, Ahuehuete , is a species of Taxodium native to much of Mexico , and also southernmost Texas, USA ....
(Taxodium mucronatum) the national tree of Mexico
Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federalism constitutionalism republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of Mexico....
. Coast Redwood and Giant Sequoia were jointly designated the state tree
List of U.S. state trees

This List of U.S. state trees includes official trees of the following U.S. state and U.S. possessions:...
of California
California

California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
and are famous California tourist attractions. Redwood National and State Parks
Redwood National and State Parks

The Redwood National and State Parks are located in the United States, along the coast of northern California. The parks consist of a combined area of located entirely within Del Norte County, California and Humboldt County, California and they protect 45% of all remaining sequoia old-growth forests, totaling at least ....
and several parks including Giant Sequoia National Monument
Giant Sequoia National Monument

The Giant Sequoia National Monument is a U.S. National Monument located in the southern Sierra Nevada in central California. It is administered by the United States Forest Service as part of the Sequoia National Forest and includes 38 from the 39 Giant Sequoia groves that located in the Sequoia National Forest, about half of the List of se...
protect almost half the remaining stands of Coast Redwoods and Giant Sequoias. Bald Cypress
Taxodium distichum

Taxodium distichum is a species of Pinophyta native to the southeastern United States....
is the state tree of Louisiana
Louisiana

The State of Louisiana is a U.S. state located in the U.S. Southern States of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans....
. Bald Cypress, often festooned with Spanish moss
Spanish Moss

Spanish moss closely resembles its namesake . However, Spanish moss is not biologically related to either mosses or lichens. Instead, it is a flowering plant in the family Bromeliaceae that grows hanging from tree branches in full sun or partial shade....
, of Southern swamps are another tourist attraction. They can be seen at Big Cypress National Preserve
Big Cypress National Preserve

Big Cypress National Preserve is a United States National preserve located in southern Florida, about 45 miles west of Miami, Florida. The Big Cypress, along with Big Thicket National Preserve in Texas, became the first national preserves in the List of areas in the National Park System of the United States when they were established on 11...
in Florida. Bald Cypress "knees
Cypress knee

In the biology of trees, a cypress knee is a distinctive structure in a root of a Cupressaceae tree of any of various species of the subfamily Cupressaceae#Classification....
" are often sold as knick knacks, made into lamps or carved to make folk art. Monterey Cypress
Cupressus macrocarpa

Cupressus macrocarpa is a species of Cupressaceae endemic to the central coast of California. In the wild, the species is confined to two small populations, near Monterey, California and Carmel-by-the-Sea, California....
is another famous picturesque tree often visited by tourists and photographers.

Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Baton Rouge is the capital city and the second largest city of Louisiana. It is located in East Baton Rouge Parish which contains 430,812 residents....
("red stake") was named after the decay-resistant red wood of Juniperus virginiana
Juniperus virginiana

Juniperus virginiana is a species of juniper native to eastern North America, from southeastern Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, east of the Great Plains....
, used by Native Americans
Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the Indigenous peoples of the Americas from the regions of North America now encompassed by the continental United States United States, including parts of Alaska and the island state of Hawaii....
in the region for waymarking
Waymarking

Waymarking is a means by which people can catalog, mark, locate and log unique and interesting locations around the world, usually with a GPS receiver....
. Its heartwood is fragrant and used in clothes chests, drawers and closets to repel moths. It is a source of juniper oil used in perfumes and medicines. The wood is also used as long lasting fenceposts and for bows. The fleshy cones of Juniperus communis
Juniperus communis

Juniperus communis, the Common Juniper, is a species in the genus Juniperus, in the family Cupressaceae. It has the largest range of any woody plant, throughout the cool temperate Northern Hemisphere from the Arctic south in mountains to around 30?N latitude in North America, Europe and Asia....
are used to flavour gin
Gin

Gin is a distilled beverage flavoured with juniper berries. Distilled gin is made by redistilling neutral grain spirit and raw cane sugar which has been flavoured with juniper berries....
.

Calocedrus decurrens
Calocedrus decurrens

Calocedrus decurrens is a species of conifer native to western North America, with the bulk of the range in the United States, from central western Oregon through most of California and the extreme west of Nevada, and also a short distance into northwest Mexico in northern Baja California....
is the main wood used to make wooden pencils and is also used for cupboards and chests. Native Americans and early European explorers used Thuja leaves as a cure for scurvy. Distillation of Fokienia
Fokienia

Fokienia is a genus in the family Cupressaceae. In its characteristics, Fokienia is intermediate between the genera of Chamaecyparis and Calocedrus, though genetically much closer to the former....
roots produces an essential oil used in medicine and cosmetics.

The pollen
Pollen

Pollen is a fine to coarse powder consisting of Gametophyte , which produce the male gametes of spermatophyta. A hard coat covering the pollen grain protects the sperm cells during the process of their movement between the stamens of the flower to the pistil of the next flower....
of many genera of Cupressaceae is allergen
Allergen

An allergen is a parasite antigen capable of stimulating a type-I hypersensitivity reaction in atopy individuals.Most humans mount significant Immunoglobulin E responses only as a defense against parasitic infections....
ic, causing major hay fever
Hay Fever

Hay Fever is a comic play written by No?l Coward in 1924 and first produced in 1925 with Marie Tempest as the first Judith Bliss. Best described as a cross between high farce and a comedy of manners, the play is set in an English country house in the 1920s, and deals with the four eccentric members of the Bliss family and their outlandish b...
problems in areas where they are abundant, most notably with Sugi in Japan.

Several genera are an alternate host of Gymnosporangium
Gymnosporangium

Gymnosporangium is a genus of heteroecious Phytopathology fungus which alternately infect members of the family Cupressaceae, primarily species in the genus Juniperus , and members of the family Rosaceae in the subfamily Maloideae ....
rust
Rust (fungus)

Rusts are fungi of the order Uredinales. Many of these species are plant parasites. Some are superficially similar to the smut , although their relation to each other is not clear....
, which damages apple
APPLE

This article is about the satellite APPLE. For the fruit apple, see Apple. For other uses see Apple .The Ariane Passenger PayLoad Experiment , was an experimental communication satellite with a C-Band transponder launched by Indian Space Research Organisation satellite on June 19, 1981 by Ariane 1, a launch vehicle of the European Spac...
s and other related trees in the subfamily Maloideae
Maloideae

The Maloideae is a large subfamily of the rose family Rosaceae with 28 genera, including approximately 1100 species worldwide with most species occurring in the temperate Northern Hemisphere....
.