''Cupressus bakeri'', reclassified as ''Hesperocyparis bakeri'',CalFlora Database: ''Hesperocyparis bakeri''
. accessed 8.28.2015. with the common names Baker cypress, Modoc cypress, or Siskiyou cypress, is a rare species of cypress tree

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

to a small area across far northern

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

and extreme southwestern

Oregon Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. T ...

, in the

western United States The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the We ...

Description

The

evergreen In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season. This also pertains to plants that retain their foliage only in warm climates, and contrasts with deciduous plants, whic ...

tree has a conic crown, growing to heights of , exceptionally to 39 m (130 ft), and a trunk diameter of up to 50 centimeters (20 inches), exceptionally to 1 m (40 in). The bark is thin, red when young, and gray in maturity. The foliage grows in sparse, very fragrant, usually pendulous sprays, varying from dull gray-green to glaucous blue-green in color. The leaves are scale-like, 2–5 millimeters long, and produced on rounded (not flattened) shoots. The seed

cones A cone is a three-dimensional geometric shape that tapers smoothly from a flat base (frequently, though not necessarily, circular) to a point called the apex or vertex. A cone is formed by a set of line segments, half-lines, or lines conn ...

are globose to oblong, covered in warty

resin In polymer chemistry and materials science, resin is a solid or highly viscous substance of plant or synthetic origin that is typically convertible into polymers. Resins are usually mixtures of organic compounds. This article focuses on n ...

glands, long, with 6 or 8 (rarely 4 or 10) scales, green to brown at first, maturing gray or gray-brown about 20–24 months after pollination. The male cones are 3–5 mm long, and release pollen in February–March.

Distribution and habitat

The tree grows in limited populations in southwestern Oregon's Josephine and

Jackson Jackson may refer to: People and fictional characters * Jackson (name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the surname or given name Places Australia * Jackson, Queensland, a town in the Maranoa Region * Jackson North, Qu ...

counties, and slightly more populously in a small section of Northern California within Siskiyou, Modoc, Shasta, Plumas and Tehama counties. It is probably the northernmost cypress. It is usually found in small, scattered populations, not in large forests, at altitudes of . This includes locales in the

Modoc Plateau __NOTOC__ The Modoc Plateau lies in the northeast corner of California as well as parts of Oregon and Nevada. Nearly of the Modoc National Forest are on the plateau between the Medicine Lake Highlands in the west and the Warner Mountains in the ...

, southern Cascade Range,

Klamath Mountains The Klamath Mountains are a rugged and lightly populated mountain range in northwestern California and southwestern Oregon in the western United States. As a mountain system within both the greater Pacific Coast Ranges and the California Coast ...

, and northern Sierra Nevada. It is slow-growing in the wild, and is mostly restricted to sites difficult for plant growth, on serpentine soils and on old

lava Lava is molten or partially molten rock (magma) that has been expelled from the interior of a terrestrial planet (such as Earth) or a moon onto its surface. Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a fracture in the crust, on land or un ...

flows. Its tolerance of these sites enables it to avoid competition from much faster-growing trees. It is found in chaparral and yellow pine forest

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

Ecology

The tree's thin bark makes it susceptible to

wildfire A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identi ...

, exposure to which is required to release the seeds; these then colonize the scorched earth left behind.

Fire suppression Wildfire suppression is a range of firefighting tactics used to suppress wildfires. Firefighting efforts in wild land areas require different techniques, equipment, and training from the more familiar structure fire fighting found in populated ...

policies of the past decades have severely limited reproduction of the species. It is listed as a

vulnerable species A vulnerable species is a species which has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as being threatened with extinction unless the circumstances that are threatening its survival and reproduction improve. Vulnera ...

on the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...

. – Listed as Vulnerable (VU B1+2bcd v2.3)

References

External links

CalFlora Database: ''Hesperocyparis bakeri'' (Baker's cypress)

Jepson Manual eFlora (JM2) treatment of ''Hesperocyparis bakeri''USDA Plants Profile for ''Hesperocyparis bakeri'' (Modoc cypress)photo of herbarium specimen at Missouri Botanical Garden, collected in 1934 in Siskiyou County, CaliforniaUC Calphotos Photos Gallery: ''Hesperocyparis bakeri''
{{Taxonbar, from=Q458366 bakeri Flora of California Flora of Oregon Endemic flora of the United States Trees of the Northwestern United States Trees of the Southwestern United States Flora of the Cascade Range Flora of the Klamath Mountains Natural history of the California chaparral and woodlands ~ ~ ~ Plants described in 1909 Taxa named by Willis Linn Jepson

Description

Distribution and habitat

Ecology

See also

References

External links