Monoecious trees or shrubs; wood fragrant, easily worked, containing oil and resin
Leaves: juvenile leaves needle-like and subspirally arranged; adult leaves scale-like and appressed, decussate or alternate but not in whorls of 3 or 4
Male cones small, ± 4 mm long, solitary, terminal, mostly on short lateral branchlets; scales in (5)6(7) pairs, decussate, coriaceous, peltate, normally with 4 pollen sacs at base of each scale
Female cones small, axillary, on elongated shoots, single or clustered; scales 4(5 or 6) of equal size and arranged in one whorl, corky-coriaceous, apiculate, divaricate at time of pollination, then closing; ovules several at base of each scale; mature cones woody, 13-25 mm in diameter, opening at apex, with 4 very thick, woody valves, often with a prominent dorsal cusp; exterior of valves smooth to warty
Southern Africa: Species 3, Northern Province, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal, Western and Eastern Cape, with 1 extending into tropical Africa
References:
ENDLICHER, S.L. 1842. Mantissa botanica sistens generum plantarum supplementum secundum. Beck, Wien
MARSH, J.A. 1966. Cupressaceae. Flora of southern Africa 1
PAGE, C.N. 1990. Cupressaceae. In K. Kubitzki, The families and genera of vascular plants 1 Springer-Verlag, Berlin
STAPF, O. 1933. Cupressaceae. Flora capensis 5, 2 (Supplement)
VON BREITENBACH, F. & VON BREITENBACH, J. 1992. Cupressaceae. Tree atlas of southern Africa section 1. Dendrological Foundation, Pretoria
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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.
The system is still under development, so you may find a few bugs/issues. If you do, please report it via the error reporting button available in various sections of the website or provide us with any useful feedback you may have via the ‘Give us feedback’ option available in the sidebar menu. You can create a free account for yourself by clicking on the user profile icon which will take you through to the login page. Here you can choose the ‘Create an account’ option or simply fill in your details if you have an account already. Having an account on Biodiversity Advisor will provide users with free access to biodiversity resources.
In future, Team SANBI will be able to log in using their day-to-day login details, BGIS users will be able to use their existing accounts and details, and general users will be able to log in using their LinkedIn profile, but for now you will need to create an account.
