CUPRESSACEAE (Cypress Family)

(Including Taxodiaceae)

Plants trees, monoecious or dioecious, evergreen or with deciduous branchlets, resinous. Leaves alternate or opposite, scalelike or flattened and needlelike. Megastrobili indehiscent and berrylike or conelike, somewhat fleshy when young and dry and somewhat woody at maturity; if conelike then maturing and shattering in a single growing season, the cone scales not subtended by a reduced bract. Seeds 2–5 mm long [longer elsewhere], not winged. About 27 genera, about 130 species, nearly worldwide, but most diverse in temperate regions.

The present treatment follows that of Eckenwalder (1976) and some later authors in combining the traditionally recognized Cupressaceae and Taxodiaceae under the former name. A summary of the literature on this topic and of the rationale for this taxonomically conservative classification was provided by Hart and Price (1990).

In addition to the species treated below a number of other members of the Cupressaceae are cultivated as ornamentals in Missouri but have not been recorded as established outside of cultivation. These include Italian cypress (Cupressus sempervirens L.), various junipers (Juniperus spp.), dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides Hu & W.C. Cheng), and arborvitae species (Thuja spp.).