Cupressaceae

From Palaeos

o Gymnospermae
`--o Coniferophyta
   |?- Ginkgoopsida
   `--+?- Gnetales
      `--o PINOPSIDA
         |?- †Cordaitales
         `--+-- †Voltziales
            `--+?-Taxales 
               `--o Coniferales
                  |?- †Miroviaceae
                  |?- †Protopinaceae
                  |?- †Palissyaceae
                  |-- †Cheirolepidiaceae
                  |-- Podocarpaceae
                  |-- Araucariaceae
                  `--+-- †Pararaucariaceae
                     |-- Pinaceae
                     |--Sciadopityaceae 
                     `--o Cupressaceae sensu lato
                        |-- Cupressaceae 
                        `-- Cephalotaxaceae 

Cupressus sempervirens, the Mediterranean Cypress, foliage and cones.

Introduction

this section from Wikipedia:

The Cupressaceae or cypress family is a conifer family with worldwide distribution. The family includes 27 to 30 genera (17 monotypic) with about 130-140 extant species. They are monoecious, subdioecious or (rarely) dioecious trees and shrubs from 1-116 m (3-379 ft) tall. The bark of mature trees is commonly orange- to red- brown and of stringy texture, often flaking or peeling in vertical strips, but smooth, scaly or hard and square-cracked in some species.

The leaves are arranged either spirally, in decussate pairs (opposite pairs, each pair at 90° to the previous pair) or in decussate whorls of 3 or 4, depending on the genus. On young plants, the leaves are needle-like, becoming small and scale-like on mature plants of many (but not all) genera; some genera and species retain needle-like leaves throughout their life. Old leaves are mostly not shed individually, but in small sprays of foliage (cladoptosis); exceptions are the leaves on shoots which develop into branches, which eventually fall off individually when the bark starts to flake. Most are evergreen with the leaves persisting 2-10 years, but three genera (Glyptostrobus, Metasequoia, Taxodium) are deciduous or include deciduous species.

The seed cones are either woody, leathery, or (in Juniperus) berry-like and fleshy, with one to several ovules per scale. The bract scale and ovuliferous scale are fused together except at the apex, where the bract scale is often visible as a short spine (often called an umbo) on the ovuliferous scale. As with the foliage, the cone scales are arranged spirally, decussate (opposite) or whorled, depending on the genus. The seeds are mostly small and somewhat flattened, with two narrow wings, one down each side of the seed; rarely (e.g. Actinostrobus) triangular in section with three wings; in some genera (e.g. Glyptostrobus, Libocedrus) one of the wings is significantly larger than the other, and in some others (e.g. Juniperus, Microbiota, Platycladus, Taxodium) the seed is larger and wingless. The seedlings usually have two cotyledons, but in some species up to six. The pollen cones are more uniform in structure across the family, 1-20 mm long, with the scales again arranged spirally, decussate (opposite) or whorled, depending on the genus; they may be borne singly at the apex of a shoot (most genera), in the leaf axils (Cryptomeria), in dense clusters (Cunninghamia; Juniperus drupacea), or on discrete long pendulous panicle-like shoots (Metasequoia, Taxodium).

Cupressaceae is the most widely distributed conifer family, with a near-global range in all continents except for Antarctica, stretching from 71°N in arctic Norway (Juniperus communis) south to 55°S in southernmost Chile (Pilgerodendron uviferum), while Juniperus indica reaches 5200 m altitude in Tibet, the highest altitude reported for any woody plant. Most habitats on land are occupied, with the exceptions of polar tundra and tropical lowland rainforest (though several species are important components of temperate rainforests and tropical highland cloud forests); they are also rare in deserts, with only a few species able to tolerate severe drought, notably Cupressus dupreziana in the central Sahara. Despite the wide overall distribution, many genera and species show very restricted relictual distributions, and many are endangered species.

Classification

this section from Wikipedia:

The family Cupressaceae is now widely regarded as including the Taxodiaceae, previously treated as a distinct family including the first five subfamilies listed below (Cunninghamioideae to Taxodioideae), but now shown not to differ from the Cupressaceae in any consistent characteristics. The one exception in the former Taxodiaceae is the genus Sciadopitys, which is genetically distinct from the rest of the Cupressaceae, and is now treated in its own family, Sciadopityaceae.

The family Cupressaceae is divided into seven subfamilies, based on genetic and morphological analysis (Gadek et al. 2000, Farjon 2005):

• Cunninghamioideae (Zucc. ex Endl.) Quinn: Cunninghamia
• Taiwanioideae L.C.Li: Taiwania
• Athrotaxidoideae L.C.Li: Athrotaxis
• Sequoioideae Saxton: Sequoia, Sequoiadendron, Metasequoia
• Taxodioideae Endl. ex K.Koch: Taxodium, Glyptostrobus, Cryptomeria
• Callitroideae Saxton: Callitris, Actinostrobus, Neocallitropsis, Widdringtonia, Diselma, Fitzroya, Austrocedrus, Libocedrus, Pilgerodendron, Papuacedrus
• Cupressoideae Rich. ex Sweet: Thuja, Thujopsis, Chamaecyparis, Fokienia, Calocedrus, Tetraclinis, Microbiota, Platycladus, Callitropsis, Cupressus, Juniperus

Phylogeny

<==Cupressaceae [Taxodiaceae]
   |  i. s.: Sabina chinensis [=Juniperus chinensis]
   |         Geinitzia reichenbachii
   |--Cunninghamia [Cunninghamioideae]
   |--Taiwania [Taiwanioideae]
   |    |--T. cryptomerioides
   |    `--T. flousiana
   |--Athrotaxis [Athrotaxidoideae]
   |    |--A. cupressoides
   |    `--A. selaginoides
   |--Sequoioideae
   |    |--Sequoia
   |    |    |--S. ambigua
   |    |    |--S. concinna
   |    |    `--S. sempervirens
   |    |--Sequoiadendron giganteum
   |    `--Metasequoia glyptostroboides
   |--Taxodioideae
   |    |--Taxodium distichum
   |    |--Glyptostrobus
   |    |    |--G. lineatus
   |    |    `--G. pensilis
   |    `--Cryptomeria japonica
   |--Callitroideae
   |    |--Callitris
   |    |--Actinostrobus
   |    |--Neocallitropsis
   |    |--Widdringtonia
   |    |--Diselma
   |    |--Fitzroya cupressoides
   |    |--Libocedrus
   |    |--Austrocedrus
   |    |--Pilgerodendron
   |    `--Papuacedrus
   `--Cupressoideae
        |--Thuja
        |    |--T. occidentalis
        |    |--T. orientalis [=Biota orientalis]
        |    `--T. standishii [=Thuyopsis standishii; incl. Thuyopsis sauarrosa]
        |--Thujopsis dolabrata [=Thuja dolabrata]
        |--Chamaecyparis
        |    |--C. obtusa
        |    `--C. pisifera
        |--Calocedrus
        |--Fokienia
        |--Tetraclinis
        |--Microbiota
        |--Platycladus
        |--Callitropsis
        |--Cupressus
        |    |--C. arizonica
        |    |--C. macrocarpa
        |    |--C. sempervirens
        |    |    |--C. s. var. sempervirens
        |    |    `--C. s. var. horizontalis
        |    `--C. torulosa
        `--Juniperus
             |--J. ashei
             |--J. communis
             |--J. conferta
             |--J. deppeana
             |--J. drupacea
             |--J. indica
             |--J. oxycedrus
             |    |--J. o. ssp. oxycedrus
             |    `--J. o. ssp. macrocarpa
             |--J. phoenicea
             |--J. recurva
             |--J. rigida
             |--J. squamata
             |--J. thurifera
             `--J. virginiana

* Type species of genus indicated

References

Candolle, A. de. 1855. Géographie Botanique Raisonée: Ou exposition des faits principaux et des lois concernant la distribution géographique des plantes de l’époque actuelle vol. 2. Librairie de Victor Masson: Paris.

Cokendolpher, J. C., & W. D. Sissom. 2000. Further contributions to the study of Dalquestia (Opiliones, Sclerosomatidae). Entomological News 111 (4): 243-249.

Emberson, R. M. 2002. The beetle (Coleoptera) fauna of the Chatham Islands: Additions and corrections. New Zealand Entomologist 25: 69-77.

Engel, M. S. 2001. A monograph of the Baltic amber bees and evolution of the Apoidea (Hymenoptera). Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 259: 1-192.

Farjon, A. (1998). World Checklist and Bibliography of Conifers. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. 300 p. ISBN 1-900347-54-7.

Farjon, A. (2005). Monograph of Cupressaceae and Sciadopitys. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. ISBN 1-84246-068-4.

Farjon, A., Hiep, N. T., Harder, D. K., Loc, P. K., & Averyanov, L. (2002). A new genus and species in the Cupressaceae (Coniferales) from northern Vietnam, Xanthocyparis vietnamensis. Novon 12: 179–189.

Friedman, W. E., & S. K. Floyd. 2001. Perspective: The origin of flowering plants and their reproductive biology – a tale of two phylogenies. Evolution 55 (2): 217-231.

Gadek, P. A., Alpers, D. L., Heslewood, M. M., & Quinn, C. J. (2000). Relationships within Cupressaceae sensu lato: a combined morphological and molecular approach. American Journal of Botany 87: 1044–1057. Available online.

Gomez, B. 2002. A new species of Mirovia (Coniferales, Miroviaceae) from the Lower Cretaceous of the Iberian Ranges (Spain). Cretaceous Research 23: 761-773.

Gomez, B., F. Thévenard, M. Fantin & L. Guisberti. 2002. Late Cretaceous plants from the Bonarelli Level of the Venetian Alps, northeastern Italy. Cretaceous Research 23: 671-685.

Jennings, D. T., J. B. Dimond & B. A. Watt. 1990. Population densities of spiders (Araneae) and spruce budworms (Lepidoptera, Tortricidae) on foliage of balsam fir and red spruce in east-central Maine. Journal of Arachnology 18: 181-194.

Kvaček, Z. 2002. Novelties on Doliostrobus (Doliostrobaceae), an extinct conifer genus of the European Palaeogene. Časopis Národního Muzea, Řada Přírodovědná 171 (1-4): 47-62.

Lack, H. W., & H. Ohba. 1998. Die Xylothek des Chikusai Kato. Willdenowia 28: 263-276.

Little, D. P., Schwarzbach, A. E., Adams, R. P. & Hsieh, Chang-Fu. (2004). The circumscription and phylogenetic relationships of Callitropsis and the newly described genus Xanthocyparis (Cupressaceae). American Journal of Botany 91 (11): 1872–1881. Available online.

Ohba, H. 1988. The alpine flora of the Nepal Himalayas: An introductory note. In The Himalayan Plants vol. 1 (H. Ohba & S. B. Malla, eds.) The University Museum, University of Tokyo, Bulletin 31: 19-46.

Ragusa-di Chiara, S., & H. Tsolakis. 2001. Phytoseiid faunas of natural and agricultural ecosystems in Sicily. In Acarology: Proceedings of the 10th International Congress (R. B. Halliday, D. E. Walter, H. C. Proctor, R. A. Norton & M. J. Colloff, eds.) pp. 522-529. CSIRO Publishing: Melbourne.

Sobek, E. A., & J. C. Zak. 2003. The Soil FungiLog procedure: Method and analytical approaches toward understanding fungal functional diversity. Mycologia 95 (4): 590-602.

Suzuki, M., & S. Noshiro. 1988. Wood structure of Himalayan plants. In The Himalayan Plants vol. 1 (H. Ohba & S. B. Malla, eds.) The University Museum, University of Tokyo, Bulletin 31: 341-379.

Yannitsaros, A. 1998. Additions to the flora of Kithira (Greece) I. Willdenowia 28: 77-94.

Zherikhin, V. V. 2002. Pattern of insect burial and conservation. In History of Insects (A. P. Rasnitsyn & D. L. J. Quicke, eds.) pp. 17-63. Kluwer Academic Publishers: Dordrecht.

Links

• Arboretum de Villardebelle Cone images of many species
• Gymnosperm Database: Cupressaceae
• Flora of China - Cupressaceae
• Flora of North America - Cupressaceae

Credits

• CKT070427 (phylogeny and most references)
• Wikipedia (Introduction, Classification, some references and external links)