''Cupressus pigmaea'', the Mendocino cypress or pygmy cypress, is a

taxon In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular nam ...

of disputed status in the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

Cupressus ''Cupressus'' is one of several genera of evergreen conifers within the family Cupressaceae that have the common name cypress; for the others, see cypress. It is considered a polyphyletic group. Based on genetic and morphological analysis, the ge ...

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 elsew ...

to certain

coast The coast, also known as the coastline or seashore, is defined as the area where land meets the ocean, or as a line that forms the boundary between the land and the coastline. The Earth has around of coastline. Coasts are important zones in n ...

al terraces and coastal mountain ranges of Mendocino and Sonoma Counties in northwestern

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. It is a highly variable tree, and closely related to ''

Cupressus goveniana ''Cupressus goveniana'', now reclassified as ''Hesperocyparis goveniana'', with the common names Californian cypress and Gowen cypress, is a species of cypress, that is endemic to California. Distribution The tree is endemic to the Monterey Pen ...

,'' enough to sometimes be considered a subspecies of it.

Description

The

foliage A leaf ( : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, ste ...

is a dull dark to light green color, with scale-like

leaves A leaf (plural, : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant plant stem, stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", wh ...

1–1.5 mm long, with the leaf tips not spreading; seedlings bear needle-like leaves 8–10 mm long. The

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 small, 11–24 mm long, and almost spherical, with six or eight scales arranged in opposite decussate pairs, with the bract visible as no more than a small lump or short spine on the scale. The

seed A seed is an embryonic plant enclosed in a protective outer covering, along with a food reserve. The formation of the seed is a part of the process of reproduction in seed plants, the spermatophytes, including the gymnosperm and angiospe ...

s are 3–5 mm long, with a pair of small wings along the sides. The cones remain closed on the trees for many years, until the trees are killed by a forest fire; after the tree is dead, the cones open to release the seeds which can then germinate successfully on the bare fire-cleared ground. The Mendocino cypress differs little from ''C. goveniana'' in morphology, with the most conspicuous difference in

herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sheet of paper (called ...

material being the usually glossy black seeds, unlike the dull brown seeds of ''C. goveniana'', but even this character is not constant, with dull brown seeds found in the southernmost populations of ''C. pigmaea'' near

Point Arena Point Arena, formerly known as Punta Arena (Spanish language, Spanish for "Sandy Point") is a small coastal city in Mendocino County, California, Mendocino County, California, United States. Point Arena is located west of Hopland, California, H ...

. Preliminary genetic studies have shown some differences, with notably some

plastid The plastid (Greek: πλαστός; plastós: formed, molded – plural plastids) is a membrane-bound organelle found in the Cell (biology), cells of plants, algae, and some other eukaryotic organisms. They are considered to be intracellular endosy ...

sequences (''matK'', ''rbcL'', and ''trnL'') suggesting a possible closer relationship to '' C. macrocarpa'', though other sequences confirm its close relationship to ''C. goveniana''. In cultivation together with ''C. goveniana'', it retains a very different crown shape, with a tall slender crown, contrasting with the broad, shrubby crown of ''C. goveniana''; it also has darker green foliage (paler, yellow-green in ''C. goveniana''). The largest recorded specimen is located in Mendocino County, with recorded dimensions of 43 m height, 2.13 m diameter, and 12 m crown spread, in 2000.

Taxonomy

Its taxonomic status is disputed by different authors. Some treat ''Cupressus pigmaea'' as a distinct species, following Sargent, including Wolf (1948), Griffin & Critchfield (1976),Griffin, J. R., & Critchfield, W. B. (1976). ''The Distribution of Forest Trees in California''. USDA Forest Service Research Paper PSW-82. Lanner (1999),Lanner, R. M. (1999). ''Conifers of California''. Cachuma Press, Los Olivos, California . and Little ''et al.'' (2004), while others treat it within ''

'' as either a

variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

(''C. goveniana var. pigmaea'' Lemmon) or a

subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...

(''C. goveniana subsp. pigmaea'' (Lemmon) A.Camus), including Camus (1914), and the ''Jepson Manual'' (1993), and yet others do not distinguish it at all within ''C. goveniana'', including the ''Flora of North America'' and Farjon (2005).Farjon, A. (2005). ''A Monograph of Cupressaceae and Sciadopityaceae''. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. . The scientific name is sometimes spelled ''pygmaea'', though this is an orthographic error.

Distribution and habitat

The Mendocino cypress is highly variable in growth form, depending on soil conditions. In the

pygmy forest In anthropology, pygmy peoples are ethnic groups whose average height is unusually short. The term pygmyism is used to describe the phenotype of endemic short stature (as opposed to disproportionate dwarfism occurring in isolated cases in a po ...

plant community on poor,

acid In computer science, ACID ( atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability) is a set of properties of database transactions intended to guarantee data validity despite errors, power failures, and other mishaps. In the context of databases, a sequ ...

ic,

nutrient A nutrient is a substance used by an organism to survive, grow, and reproduce. The requirement for dietary nutrient intake applies to animals, plants, fungi, and protists. Nutrients can be incorporated into cells for metabolic purposes or excret ...

-starved

podsol In soil science, podzols are the typical soils of coniferous or boreal forests and also the typical soils of eucalypt forests and heathlands in southern Australia. In Western Europe, podzols develop on heathland, which is often a construct of huma ...

soils with drainage impeded by an iron hardpan, it is a stunted tree from 0.2–5 meters in height at maturity. When occurring in its pygmy form, it is sometimes called pygmy cypress. When growing on deep, well-drained soils it can be a large tree up to 30–50 meters in height and 1–2.4 m in trunk diameter. The bark is dark gray-brown, with stringy texture, and fissured on old trees. Mendocino cypress occurs in very limited ranges within only

Mendocino County Mendocino County (; ''Mendocino'', Spanish language, Spanish for "of Antonio de Mendoza, Mendoza) is a County (United States), county located on the North Coast (California), North Coast of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United Sta ...

, on some of the historical lands of the Yuki Native American people. In Mendocino County the occurrence is in a discontinuous

al terrace strip, primarily as a pygmy forest associated with

bishop pine ''Pinus muricata'', the bishop pine, is a pine with a very restricted range: mostly in California, including several offshore Channel Islands, and a few locations in Baja California, Mexico. It is always on or near the coast. In San Luis Obispo ...

(''Pinus muricata'') and Mendocino shore pine (''P. contorta var. bolanderi''). Occurrences are typically below 500 m in elevation. The Mendocino County official

soil Soil, also commonly referred to as earth or dirt, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support life. Some scientific definitions distinguish ''dirt'' from ''soil'' by restricting the former te ...

s survey states that "While not formally recognized as a major forest cover type, the coastal portion of the survey area also includes bishop pine and Mendocino cypress (pygmy) forest types".

Productivity

Along the Mendocino coastal terraces, whose geological age is approximately one million years, studies have been conducted of the biomass density and

primary productivity In ecology, primary production is the synthesis of organic compounds from atmospheric or aqueous carbon dioxide. It principally occurs through the process of photosynthesis, which uses light as its source of energy, but it also occurs through c ...

of the ''Cupressus pygmaea''-dominated pygmy forest.Westman, W. E. & Whittaker, R. H. (1975). The Pygmy Forest Region of Northern California: Studies on Biomass and Primary Productivity. ''Journal of Ecology'' 63 (2): 493-520. . The terraces in this area extend a full five to ten kilometers inland from the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

. In the Mendocino cypress pygmy forests,

biomass Biomass is plant-based material used as a fuel for heat or electricity production. It can be in the form of wood, wood residues, energy crops, agricultural residues, and waste from industry, farms, and households. Some people use the terms bi ...

was measured to range between 1.6 and 4.4 kilograms per square meter aboveground; moreover, net primary productivity was found to measure 180 to 360 grams per square meter per annum above the ground surface. Mean below-ground values are 3.5 kilograms biomass per square meter, productivity being 402 grams per meter per annum. The leaf-area ratio of the pygmy forest was estimated as 2.1 grams per square meter implying a high production efficiency per unit leaf area for an

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, which ...

community (150 grams per meter aboveground ). According to Westman, productivity of the ''C. pygmaea'' forest lies within the range expected for open, dry

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...

s. A similar community for which data is available is a pygmy conifer-oak scrubland in southern

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

References

External links

{{Taxonbar, from=Q5194573 pigmaea Endemic flora of California Trees of the Southwestern United States Natural history of the California Coast Ranges Natural history of Mendocino County, California Natural history of Sonoma County, California Trees of mild maritime climate Plants described in 1895 Flora without expected TNC conservation status