Flora of North America species comparison

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Cupressus goveniana

Cupressus macnabiana

Gowen cypress, Mendocino cypress, Santa Cruz cypress

Macnab cypress, Macnab's cypress
Habit Shrubs or small trees usually to 10 m, but to 50 m under favorable conditions, or bearing cones at as little as 2 dm on shallow hardpan soils; crown globose to columnar, dense or sparse.
Bark

smooth or rough, fibrous.

rough, furrowed, fibrous.
Branchlets

decussate, 1–1.5 mm diam.

comblike, 0.5–1 mm diam.
Leaves

without abaxial gland or sometimes with embedded abaxial gland that does not produce drop of resin, not glaucous.

with conspicuous, pitlike, abaxial gland that produces drop of resin, sometimes glaucous.
Pollen cones

3–4 × 1.5–2 mm;

pollen sacs 3–6.

2–3 × 2 mm;

pollen sacs 3–5.
Seed(s)

cones globose, 1–2.5(–3) cm, grayish brown, not glaucous;

scales 3–5 pairs, smooth, umbo nearly flat at maturity.

cones globose, mostly 1.5–2.5 cm, brown or gray, not glaucous;

scales 3–4 pairs, smooth except for erect conic umbos, 2–4 mm.
Shrubby

trees to 12 m;

crown broadly conical, dense.

Cupressus goveniana

Cupressus macnabiana
Habitat Coastal closed-cone pine forests, especially on sterile soils Chaparral and foothill woodland, often on serpentine
Elevation 60–800 m (200–2600 ft) 300–850 m (1000–2800 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
CA
[WildflowerSearch map]
from FNA
CA
[WildflowerSearch map]
Discussion

Populations from the three regions of Cupressus goveniana —north coast, Santa Cruz Mountains, and Monterey Peninsula—differ in foliage and seed characters and have been treated as varieties or species; additional interpopulational variation occurs within these regions. Trees from Santa Cruz Mountain populations may have originated through hybidization with C. sargentii (E. Zavarin et al. 1971). The pygmy forests of this species and Pinus contorta Douglas ex Loudon on the shallow hardpan soils of coastal terraces of the Mendocino white plains are a remarkable example of phenotypic plasticity.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

In the inner north Coast Ranges Cupressus macnabiana and C. sargentii produce the only known natural hybrids in Cupressus (L. Lawrence et al. 1975).

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 2. FNA vol. 2.
Parent taxa Cupressaceae > Cupressus Cupressaceae > Cupressus
Sibling taxa
C. arizonica, C. bakeri, C. guadalupensis, C. macnabiana, C. macrocarpa, C. sargentii
C. arizonica, C. bakeri, C. goveniana, C. guadalupensis, C. macrocarpa, C. sargentii
Synonyms C. abramsiana, C. goveniana var. abramsiana, C. goveniana var. pigmaea, C. pigmaea
Name authority Gordon: J. Hort. Soc. London 4: 295. (1849) A. Murray bis: Edinburgh New Philos. J. ser. 2, 1: 293, plate 11. (1855)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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