Hesperocyparis pygmaea

The foliage is a dull dark to light green color, with scale-like leaves 1–1.5 mm long, with the leaf tips not spreading; seedlings bear needle-like leaves 8–10 mm long. The cones are small, 11–24 mm long, and almost spherical, with six or eight scales arranged in opposite decussate pairs, with the bract visible as no more than a small lump or short spine on the scale. The seeds are 3–5 mm long, with a pair of small wings along the sides. In cultivation together with H. goveniana, it retains a very different crown shape, with a tall slender crown, contrasting with the broad, shrubby crown of H. goveniana; it also has darker green foliage (paler, yellow-green in H. goveniana). ==Taxonomy==

Hesperocyparis pygmaea was first described as a subspecies by J.G. Lemmon with the name Cupressus goveniana var. pygmaea in 1895. It was described as a species by Charles Sprague Sargent in 1901. Its taxonomic status is a long standing matter of dispute between botanists. In the 20th century some treated Cupressus pygmaea as a distinct species, following Sargent, including Wolf (1948), Griffin & Critchfield (1976), and Lanner (1999). Others treated it within Cupressus goveniana as either a variety (C. goveniana var. pigmaea Lemmon) or a subspecies (C. goveniana subsp. pygmaea (Lemmon) A.Camus), including Camus (1914), and the Jepson Manual (1993), and one publication, the Flora of North America, did not distinguish it at all within C. goveniana. The spelling of the scientific name has also been confused. Lemmon's protologue at varietal rank used the spelling pigm a, a typographic error hand corrected to pigmaea, in the main description () but pygmaea in the contents (). In raising the taxon to species rank, Sargent changed the spelling to pygmaea (), a legitimate change as a botanical name has no priority outside of the rank at which it is published (ICN Art. 11.2); this has been followed by most subsequent authors (including Camus in the first allocation to subspecific rank ), though a few subsequent authors have incorrectly used the spelling pigmaea at ranks other than varietal (e.g. Farjon 2005, Additionally moving the new world cypress species to different genera was proposed three different times. In 2006 Damon P. Little proposed moving them to Callitropsis, but did not find wide acceptance. and the Gymnosperm Database. ==Distribution and habitat==

The Mendocino cypress is highly variable in growth form, depending on soil conditions. In the pygmy forest plant community on poor, acidic, nutrient-starved podsol soils with drainage impeded by an iron hardpan, it is a stunted tree from 0.2–5 meters in height at maturity. When occurring in its pygmy form, it is sometimes called pygmy cypress. When growing on deep, well-drained soils it can be a large tree up to 30–50 meters in height and 1–2.4 m in trunk diameter. The bark is dark gray-brown, with stringy texture, and fissured on old trees. ==Productivity==

Along the Mendocino coastal terraces, whose geological age is approximately one million years, studies have been conducted of the biomass density and primary productivity of the Hesperocyparis pygmaea-dominated pygmy forest. The terraces in this area extend a full five to ten kilometers inland from the Pacific Ocean. In the Mendocino cypress pygmy forests, biomass was measured to range between 1.6 and 4.4 kilograms per square meter aboveground; moreover, net primary productivity was found to measure 180 to 360 grams per square meter per annum above the ground surface. Mean below-ground values are 3.5 kilograms biomass per square meter, productivity being 402 grams per meter per annum. The leaf-area ratio of the pygmy forest was estimated as 2.1 grams per square meter implying a high production efficiency per unit leaf area for an evergreen community (150 grams per meter aboveground ). According to Westman, productivity of the H. pygmaea forest lies within the range expected for open, dry woodlands. A similar community for which data is available is a pygmy conifer-oak scrubland in southern Arizona. ==References==