Belongs within: Cupressophyta.
Contains: Taxodioideae, Callitroideae, Cupressoideae.
The conifer family Cupressaceae includes cypresses (Cupressus), junipers (Juniperus) and related taxa. The family has previously been divided between the Cupressaceae sensu stricto (with leaves opposite or whorled, comprising Callitroideae and Cupressoideae) and Taxodiaceae (with leaves mostly alternate), but the latter is now recognised as paraphyletic to the former and most recent authors combine the two. Many species are significant timber trees. The giant redwood Sequoiadendron giganteum is the world’s largest (though not tallest) tree.
Members of the Cupressaceae include the east Asian genera Cunninghamia and Taiwania, both of which bear seed cones with thin, leathery scales; Cunninghamia has linear, tapering leaves whereas Taiwania has scale-like leaves. Both these genera have more extensive distributions in the fossil record, with close relatives of both known from Europe and North America. The genus Athrotaxis is found in the modern flora of Australia with fossil relatives in the Americas (Mao et al. 2012). The Sequoioideae, redwoods, are found in the modern flora in eastern Asia and western North America.
Characters (Watson & Eckenwalder): Trees or shrubs, evergreen (rarely deciduous), generally resinous and aromatic, monoecious (sometimes dioecious). Bark fibrous and furrowed (occasionally smooth or exfoliating in plates). Lateral branches well developed, similar to leading shoots, twigs terete, angled, or flattened dorsiventrally (with structurally distinct lower and upper surfaces), densely clothed by scalelike leaves or by decurrent leaf bases; longest internodes to 1 cm; buds usually undifferentiated and inconspicuous. Roots fibrous to woody (rarely bearing aboveground “knees”). Leaves simple, usually persisting 3–5 years and shed with lateral shoots (cladoptosic) (rarely shed annually), alternate and spirally arranged but sometimes twisted so as to appear 2-ranked, or opposite in 4 ranks, or whorled, deltate-scalelike to linear, decurrent, sessile or petioled; adult leaves appressed or spreading, often differing between lateral and leading shoots (twigs heterophyllous), sometimes strongly dimorphic on each twig with lateral scale-leaf pairs conspicuously keeled; juvenile leaves linear, flattened, spreading; often with solitary abaxial resin gland; resin canal present. Pollen cones maturing and shed annually, solitary, terminal (rarely in clusters of 2–5, axillary, or in terminal panicles), simple, spheric to oblong; sporophylls overlapping, bearing 2–10 abaxial microsporangia (pollen sacs); pollen spheric, not winged. Seed cones maturing in 1–2 seasons, shed with short shoots or persisting indefinitely on long-lived axes (rarely shattering at maturity), compound, solitary, terminal (rarely in clusters of 2–5 or axillary); scales overlapping or abutting, fused to subtending bracts with only bract apex sometimes free; each scale-bract complex peltate, oblong or cuneate, at maturity woody or fleshy, with 1–20 erect (rarely inverted with age), adaxial ovules. Seeds 1–20 per scale, not winged or with 2–3 symmetric or asymmetric wings; aril lacking; cotyledons 2–9.
<==Cupressaceae [Cupressinae, Taxodiaceae, Taxodinae, Thujopsidae]
|--Sewardiodendron laxumMM12
|--AustrohamiaMM12
| |--*A. minutaMM12
| `--A. acanthobracteaMM12
|--+--Cunninghamiostrobus yubariensisMM12
| |--CunninghamitesMM12
| | |--C. elegansGT02
| | `--C. lignitumMM12
| `--Cunninghamia Br. 1826MM12, KC01 [Cunninghamioideae]
| |--C. hornbyensisMM12
| |--C. konishiiMM12
| `--C. lanceolataMM12
`--+--Taiwania [Taiwanioideae]MM12
| |--T. cretaceaMM12
| |--T. cryptomerioidesMM12
| |--T. flousianaGT02
| `--T. schaeferiMM12
`--+--AthrotaxidoideaeMM12
| |--Athrotaxites berryiMM12
| `--AthrotaxisMM12
| | i. s.: A. ungeriMM12
| |--A. cupressoidesMM12
| `--+--A. laxifoliaMM12
| `--A. selaginoidesMM12
`--+--+--TaxodioideaeMM12
| `--+--CallitroideaeMM12
| `--CupressoideaeMM12
`--SequoioideaeMM12
|--MetasequoiaMM12
| |--M. foxiiMM12
| |--M. glyptostroboidesMM12
| |--M. milleriMM12
| `--M. occidentalisMM12
`--+--Austrosequoia wintonensisMM12
|--QuasisequoiaMM12
| |--Q. couttsiae (Heer) Kunzmann 1999 (see below for synonymy)HL08
| `--Q. floriniiMM12
`--+--Sequoiadendron giganteumMM12
`--SequoiaMM12
|--S. ambiguaGT02
|--S. carbonariaJD05
|--S. concinnaGT02
|--S. giganteaH04
|--S. langsdorfiS89
|--S. reichenbachiiMM12
`--S. sempervirensMM12
Cupressaceae incertae sedis:
Geinitzia reichenbachiiGT02
Taxodioxylon gypsaceumJD05
Cupressoconus rhenanusJD05
Otakauia Pole 1995P00
|--*O. lanceolataP00
`--O. macchatiensis Pole 2000P00
Cupressinoxylon (nom. cons.)JD05 [=Retinodendron (nom. rej.)S03]
|--C. bibbinsiP92
|--C. glyptostrobiumJD05
|--C. polonicumJD05
|--C. ponderosumJD05
`--C. sequoianumJD05
Hughmillerites juddiiMM12
ElatidesMM12
|--E. thomasii Harris 1979C93
`--E. williamsoniiMM12
PentakonosHS17
StutzeliastrobusHS17
Sequoioxylon gypsaceumP92
WiddringtonitesP92
CupressitesP92
CupressinanthusP92
Quasisequoia couttsiae (Heer) Kunzmann 1999 [=Sequoia couttsiae Heer 1862, Athrotaxis couttsiae (Heer) Gardner 1884]HL08
*Type species of generic name indicated
References
[C93] Cleal, C. J. 1993. Gymnospermophyta. In: Benton, M. J. (ed.) The Fossil Record 2 pp. 795–808. Chapman & Hall: London.
[GT02] 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.
[H04] Haeckel, E. 1899–1904. Kunstformen der Natur. Bibliographisches Institut: Leipzig und Wien.
[HL08] Henniger, M., & R. Leder. 2008. Eozäne Makroflora der Querfurter Mulde. Mauritiana 20 (2): 229–251.
[HS17] Herrera, F., G. Shi, N. Ichinnorov, M. Takahashi, E. V. Bugdaeva, P. S. Herendeen & P. R. Crane. 2017. The presumed ginkgophyte Umaltolepis has seed-bearing structures resembling those of Peltaspermales and Umkomasiales. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA: E2385–E2391.
[JD05] Junge, F. W., M. Dolezych, H. Walther, T. Böttger, A. Kühl, L. Kunzmann, P. Morgenstern, T. Steinberg & R. Stange. 2005. Ein Fenster in Landschaft und Vegetation vor 37 Millionen Jahren: Lithologische, sedimentgeochemische und paläobotanische Befunde aus einem Paläoflusssystem des Weißelsterbeckens. Mauritiana 19 (2): 185–273.
[KC01] Kirk, P. M., P. F. Cannon, J. C. David & J. A. Stalpers. 2001. Ainsworth & Bisby’s Dictionary of the Fungi 9th ed. CAB International: Wallingford (UK).
[MM12] Mao, K., R. I. Milne, L. Zhang, Y. Peng, J. Liu, P. Thomas, R. R. Mill & S. S. Renner. 2012. Distribution of living Cupressaceae reflects the breakup of Pangea. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 109 (20): 7793–7798.
[P92] Poinar, G. O., Jr. 1992. Life in Amber. Stanford University Press: Stanford.
[P00] Pole, M. S. 2000. Mid-Cretaceous conifers from the Eromanga Basin, Australia. Australian Systematic Botany 13 (2): 153–197.
[S03] Skog, J. E. 2003. Report of the Committee for Fossil Plants: 4. Taxon 52: 341.
[S89] Squinabol, S. 1889. Res Ligusticae. VII.—Cenno preliminare sulla flora fossile di Santa Giustina. Annali del Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Genova, Serie 2a, 7: 73–76.