Trees or large shrubs; branchlets terete or quadrangular, in decussate arrays
Leaves opposite, in 4 ranks; adult leaves appressed to divergent, scale-like, rhomboid, free portion of long-shoot leaves up to 4 mm long; abaxial gland present or absent
Male cones with 4-10 pairs of sporophylls, each sporophyll with 3-10 pollen sacs
Female cones maturing in 1-2 years, generally persisting closed for many years, or until opened by fire, globose or oblong, 10-40 mm in diameter; scales in 3-6 pairs, valvate, peltate, thick and woody, persistent
Seeds 5-20 per scale, lenticular or faceted, narrowly 2-winged; cotyledons 2-5
x = 11
Nomenclature:
*Cupressus L.
Linnaeus: 1002 (1753)
Linnaeus: 435 (1754)
Eckenwalder: 405 (1993)
Distribution & Notes:
Global: Species ± 13, warm north temperate regions
Southern Africa: Species 1: *Cupressus arizonica Greene, naturalised in Free State and Eastern Cape
References:
ECKENWALDER, J.E. 1993. Cupressus. Flora of North America 2
LINNAEUS, C. 1753. Species plantarum. Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
LINNAEUS, C. 1754. Genera plantarum, edn 5. Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
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Welcome to Biodiversity Advisor 2.0!
Biodiversity Advisor, developed by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and its Data Partners, is a system that will provide integrated biodiversity information to a wide range of users who will have access to geospatial data, plant and animal species distribution data, ecosystem-level data, literature, images and metadata.
The integrated information comes from our much-loved Botanical Database of Southern Africa (BODATSA) also known as Plants of Southern Africa (POSA), Zoological Database of Southern Africa (ZODATSA), Biodiversity Geographic Information System (BGIS), SANBI's institutional repository (Opus) and others.
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