cupressus arizonica fastigiata globe
Cupressus arizonica, the Arizona cypress, is a North American species of trees in the cypress family. It is native to the southwestern United States (Arizona, Utah, southwestern New Mexico, and southern California, with a few populations in southern Nevada and in the Chisos Mountains of western Texas), and in Mexico (Coahuila, Chihuahua, Sonora, Durango, Tamaulipas, Zacatecas and northern Baja California). In the wild, the species is often found in small, scattered populations, not necessarily in large forests. An example occurrence is within the Sierra Juárez and San Pedro Mártir pine-oak forests of Mexico, where it is found along with Canyon Live Oak and California Fan Palm.
Cupressus arizonica is a coniferous evergreen tree with a conic to ovoid-conic crown. It grows to heights of 10–25 m (32.8-82.0 ft), and its trunk diameter reaches 0.5 m (19.7 in). The foliage grows in dense sprays, varying from dull gray-green to bright glaucous blue-green. The leaves are scale-like, 2–5 mm long, and produced on rounded (not flattened) shoots. The seed cones are globose to oblong, 15–33 mm long, with 6 or 8 (rarely 4 or 10) scales, green at first, maturing gray or gray-brown about 20–24 months after pollination. The cones remain closed for many years, only opening after the parent tree is killed in a wildfire, thereby allowing the seeds to colonize the bare ground exposed by the fire. The male cones are 3–5 mm long, and release pollen in February–March
Cupressocyparis leylandii globe
The Leyland cypress, Cupressus × leylandii, often referred to simply as leylandii, is a fast-growing coniferous evergreen tree much used in horticulture, primarily for hedges and screens. Even on sites of relatively poor culture, plants have been known to grow to heights of 15 metres (49 ft) in 16 years. Their rapid, thick growth means they are sometimes used to achieve privacy, but such use can result in disputes with neighbours whose own property becomes overshadowed.The tree is a hybrid, almost always sterile, and propagated mainly from cuttings.
Cupressocyparis leylandii globe
In 1845, the Leighton Hall, Powys estate was purchased by the Liverpool banker Christopher Leyland. In 1847, he gave it to his nephew John Naylor (1813–1889). Naylor commissioned Edward Kemp to lay out the gardens, which included redwoods, monkey puzzle trees and two North American species of conifers in close proximity to each other – Monterey cypress and Nootka cypress. The two parent species would not likely cross in the wild as their natural ranges are more than 400 miles (640 km) apart, but in 1888 the hybrid cross occurred when the female flowers or cones of Nootka cypress were fertilised by pollen from Monterey cypress.
John Naylor's eldest son Christopher John (1849–1926) inherited Leighton Hall from his father in 1889. Christopher was a sea captain by trade. In 1891 he inherited the Leyland Entailed Estates established under the will of his great-great-uncle, which passed to him following the death of his uncle Thomas Leyland. On receiving the inheritance Christopher changed his surname to Leyland, and moved to Haggerston Castle, Northumberland. He further developed the hybrid at his new home, and hence named the first clone variant 'Haggerston Grey'. His younger brother John (1856–1906) resultantly inherited Leighton Hall, and when in 1911 the reverse hybrid of the cones of the Monterey cypress were fertilised with pollen from the Nootka, that hybrid was baptised 'Leighton Green.
The hybrid has since arisen on nearly 20 separate occasions, always by open pollination, showing the two species are readily compatible and closely related. As a hybrid, although fertility of certain Leyland cypress forms were recently reported, most Leyland cypress were thought to be sterile, and nearly all the trees we now see have resulted from cuttings originating from those few plants. There are over forty forms of Leyland cypress, and as well as 'Haggerston Grey' and 'Leighton Green', other well-known forms include 'Stapehill', which was discovered in 1940 in a garden in Ferndown, Dorset by M. Barthelemy and 'Castlewellan', which originated from a single mutant tree in the Castlewellan estate arboretum in Northern Ireland. This form, widely propagated from the 1970s, was selected by the park director, John Keown, and was named Cupressus macrocarpa 'Keownii', 1963.
Other forms include 'Douglas Gold', 'Drabb', 'Emerald Isle', 'Ferndown', 'Golconda', 'Golden Sun', 'Gold Rider', 'Grecar', 'Green Spire', 'Grelive', Haggerston 3, Haggerston 4, Haggerston 5, Haggerston 6, 'Harlequin', 'Herculea', 'Hyde Hall', 'Irish Mint', 'Jubilee', 'Medownia', 'Michellii', 'Moncal', 'Naylor's Blue', 'New Ornament', 'Olive's Green', 'Robinson's Gold', 'Rostrevor', 'Silver Dust', 'Variegata', 'Ventose' and 'Winter Sun'.
The taxonomic status of Nootka cypress has changed over time. In the past, it was regarded as belonging in the genus Cupressus, and later placed in Chamaecyparis. It has become clear, however, that when the genus Cupressus is defined to include Chamaecyparis, it is paraphyletic unless it also includes Juniperus. In 2004, Little et al. transferred the Nootka cypress to Callitropsis.Little (2006) proposed another alternative by transferring all the North American species of Cupressus, including the Monterey cypress (C. macrocarpa), to Callitropsis. In some of these classifications, the hybrids become very unusual in being intergeneric hybrids, the only ones ever reported among the gymnosperms. In 2010, Mao et al. performed a more detailed molecular analysis and redefined Cupressus to exclude Chamaecyparis, but to include the Nootka cypress. It may be added that attempts to cross Nootka cypress with other Chamaecyparis species have been universally unsuccessful. Where Nootka cypress is treated in Chamaecyparis, the name of the hybrid becomes ×Cupressocyparis leylandii, and where treated in Xanthocyparis, the hybrid becomes ×Cuprocyparis leylandii.
Cupressocyparis goldcrest globe
Cupressus macrocarpa is a medium-sized coniferous evergreen tree, which often becomes irregular and flat-topped as a result of the strong winds that are typical of its native area. It grows to heights of up to 40 meters (133 feet) in perfect growing conditions, and its trunk diameter can reach 2.5 meters (over 8 feet). The foliage grows in dense sprays which are bright green in color and release a deep lemony aroma when crushed. The leaves are scale-like, 2–5 mm long, and produced on rounded (not flattened) shoots; seedlings up to a year old have needle-like leaves 4–8 mm long.
The seed cones are globose to oblong, 20–40 mm long, with 6–14 scales, green at first, maturing brown about 20–24 months after pollination. The pollen cones are 3–5 mm long, and release their pollen in late winter or early spring.
It has been widely reported that individual C. macrocarpa trees may be up to 2,000 years old, but this is disputed by botanists, and the longest-lived report based on physical evidence is of a tree 284 years old.The renowned Californian botanist Willis Linn Jepson wrote that "the advertisement of [C. macrocarpa trees] in seaside literature as 1,000 to 2,000 years old does not ... rest upon any actual data, and probably represents a desire to minister to a popular craving for superlatives".
Along with other New World Cupressus species, it has recently been transferred to the genus Hesperocyparis, on genetic evidence that the New World Cupressus are not very closely related to the Old World Cupressus species.
