Common Names
Piute (1) or Paiute (2) cypress.Taxonomic notes
Syn: Cupressus nevadensis Abrams (2); C. macnabiana var. nevadensis (Abrams) Abrams (4).Description
"[C]losest to the type of the collective species. Bark on old trees gray to dark brown, furrowed; leaves with conspicuous glands; cones usually remain closed for several years" (4).Range
USA: California: Kern County. (2). "Known only from the drainage of Bodfish Creek, and, at 4000 feet, on Red Hill in the Paiute Mountains" (6).Big Tree
Height 14 m, dbh 93 cm, crown spread 9 m; also height 10m, dbh 100 cm, crown spread 12 m; both in Sequoia National Forest, CA (3).Oldest
Dendrochronology
Ethnobotany
"Like most of the native Cypresses, this one has long been used by the ranchers in the vicinity for fence posts, since it lasts for years in contact with the soil" (6).Observations
Not seen. See Remarks. Herbarium collections (5) have been made in the following locales: 1) Piute Mountain Kernville Quad., Piute Mountain Elevation: 4500 ft; 2) Greenhorn Mountains at 3850 ft, about 5.8 mi E of and below the Greenhorn Summit Store along the Old Kernville Road, then about 0.2 mi to the right along a side road to a creek that heads below the store; 3) Greenhorn Mountains, Black Mt., 4200 ft, just about 5 mi below (E of) the Greenhorn Summit Store in a dry, rocky gully that slopes S from the rocky S side of Black Mt. along the Old Kernville Road; 4) 3000 ft in oak woodland near Bodfish at the base of Piute Mt.; 5) MPiute Lookout, Piute Peak about 2.5 mi e of its junction along road from Havilat-Bodfish summit to Piute Mountains, Red Hill 5000 ft.Remarks
"Most of the California cypresses tend to be rare and local in their occurrence, but none more so than this one, which was discovered in 1915 by that dean of California botanists, Leroy Abrams. He drove south along the road between Bodfish and Havilah for about 3 miles to the summit of a grade, then turned off on an unsurfaces clay road ... for 2 1/2 miles. And there he came upon thousands of specimens of this conical tree, its foliage in summer, when Abrams first saw it, a dusty gray-green, though in spring when the rains are ending it is a fine glowing green. Flowering takes place in February and March and at that time many of the specimens, according to the ranchers, appear as golden trees, powdered over with untold numbers of yellow male flowers" (6).Citations
(1) Silba 1986.(2) Peattie 1950 (as C. nevadensis).
(3) American Forests 1996.
(4) Vidakovic 1991.
(5) Herbarium data for all California species are accessible via the CalFlora Database.
(6) Peattie 1950.
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This page is from the Gymnosperm Database
URL: http://www.geocities.com/~earlecj/cu/cup/nevadensis.htm
Edited by Christopher J. Earle
E-mail:earlecj@earthlink.com
Last modified on 27-Feb-1999