Description
Chamaecyparis – False Cypress –
There are about 8 species of monoecious, evergreen, coniferous trees, in this genus. They occur in Eastern Asia and North America. They have flattened sprays of scale like, overlapping adult leaves, to 1/4″ long, and longer ovate to linear juvenile leaves to 3/8″ long, in gold, bluish, bronze and green. The spherical or angular female cones have 2,. Occasionally 3-5 seeds on each shield-like scale, and most ripen in the first autumn. The spherical or ovoid male cones, usually to 1/4″ long, are borne in spring. False cypresses are used as specimen trees and for hedging, they have given rise to a vast number of cultivars, many dwarf or slow growing, and suitable for rock gardens or bonsai. They can be fast growing if conditions are to their liken. Contact with the foliage may aggravate skin allergies.
Tolerant of alkaline soils but best grown in moist but well drained, preferably neutral to slightly acidic soil in full sun. Trim hedges from late spring to early autumn, but do not cut into older wood.
Prone to spruce mites, twig blight, root rot, and needle blight.
C. lawsoniana – Cupressus lawsoniana – Lawson False cypress – Oregon Cedar – Lawson Cypress – Port Orford Cedar – This narrowly columnar, coniferous tree from humid coastal forest in Western North America grows 50-130′ feet tall and 6-15′ feet wide. It can have 4′ feet diameter trunk. It has a dense crown, a pendent leading shoot, and reddish brown bark forming rounded, scaly plates. It produces blue-green to bright green mature leaves which are arranged in opposite pairs, they are sharply pointed, with incurved tips and translucent central glands. Oblong male cones, to 3/8″ long, are bluish black in bud, opening brick red. The wrinkled, reddish brown, sometimes glaucous female cones, to ½” across, each have 8 scales. There are some 180 cultivars some dwarf, some with yellow foliage.
‘Stewartii’ – rapidly reaches 15-25′ feet tall with broad base and crowded nodding sprays of rich butterfly foliage.
Zones 5-9
