Fitzroya
Patagonian cypress ( Fitzroya cupressoides )
The Patagonian cypress or Alerce ( Fitzroya cupressoides ) is the only species of the genus Fitzroya from the family of the cypress family ( Cupressaceae ). It is native to South America. She is listed as one of only two tree species in Appendix I of the CITES Convention. The international trade in the Alerce is therefore prohibited categorically.
Description
The Patagonian cypress is an evergreen tree. At their home locations the Patagonian cypress grows a mighty tree and can reach heights of growth of about 45 to 50 meters and trunk diameter of 3 to 5 meters. You can achieve a very high age. The oldest Patagonian cypress could be dated to life 3,600 years old. The Patagonian cypress grows very slowly. The bark is reddish- brown to dark brown and deeply fissured. Young trees have a conical crown in about; age the crown is loose. The major branches are tightly upward, while the branches hang. The scale-like leaves are dark blue-green and 2 to 4 millimeters long. You are a threesome in whorls and assign both sides of one to two white stripes.
Fitzroya cupressoides is dioecious getrenntgeschlechtig ( dioecious ), male and female cones are therefore located on different trees. The single axillary near the tips of the branches standing male cones are cylindrical. The solitary, female cones have nine seed scales in three whorls: the seed scales of the lower whorl are sterile and the smallest, the seed scales of the middle whorl are sterile or with only one seed and larger, the top three seed scales have two to six seeds. The mature in the first year cones are spherical with a diameter. The egg-shaped seeds have two, rarely three wings. The seedlings have two seed leaves ( cotyledons ).
System
The Italian botanist Juan Ignacio Molina described this species in 1782 under the name Pinus cupressoides. The American botanist Ivan Murray Johnston referred to this basionym, but this kind presented under the name Fitzroya cupressoides in a separate genus; its first description was published in 1924.
Other synonyms are: Abies cupressoides ( Molina ) Poir, Cupresstellata patagonica ( Hook. f ) J.Nelson, Fitzroya patagonica Hook.. . f ex Lindl., Libocedrus tetragona ( Hook. ) Endl. , Thuja tetragona Hooker.
Dissemination
This species is native to the southern Andes of South America; it is only in southern Chile ( in the Región de los Lagos) and in Argentina ( provinces of Chubut, Neuquén and Río Negro) in front.
In Central Europe it is not hardy enough. In the British Isles it thrives quite satisfactory and reached there at least plant height of about 20 meters.
Special single copies
The largest officially registered copy of Argentina is the National Park Los Alerces on the northern tip of Lake Menendez, near Puerto Sagrario. This tree is 57 meters tall and has a trunk diameter of 2.2 meters. Its age is estimated at 2600 years. Even higher copies are rumors of park rangers, according to stand on the southern branch of Lake Menendez, which is not publicly available, however. In Chile " Natural Monument Alerce Costero " in the region X, just south of Valdivia, there is a mighty Alercebaum with a diameter of 4.26 m.
The age of one specimen was determined to be 3622 years. This is the second highest age of a single tree, which so far could ever be exactly determined. In this specimen along with even older wooden finds of Patagonian cypress a dendrochronology could be established, which covers 5666 years and thus represents the longest secured by tree-ring chronology analyzes in the Southern Hemisphere. There are almost certainly even older copies than the 3622 years old tree. These examples, however, are hollow, so that an accurate age determination is not possible.