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Sargent Cypress

The Cupressus Sargentii is commonly known as Sargent Cypress,

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Growing Regions

Sargent cypress occurs only in California and has the widest distribution of all of the coastal California cypress [20]. Numerous scattered groves occur in the Coast Ranges from northern Mendocino County south to Santa Barbara County [5,15,29]. Sargent cypress is cultivated in Hawaii [35].

     

General Information

The currently accepted scientific name of Sargent cypress is Cupressus sargentii Jeps. (Cupressaceae) [4,11,23]. There are two recognized varieties [23,30]: Cupressus sargentii var. sargentii Cupressus sargentii var. duttonii Jeps. Natural hybridization between Sargent cypress and MacNab cypress (Cupressus macnabiana) has been hypothesized, but evidence for it is inconclusive [18,29]. 

Sargent cypress is a component of the northern interior cypress forest.
This community is an open, fire-maintained, scrubby forest similar to
the knobcone pine (Pinus attenuata) forest.  Sargent cypress occurs in
widely scattered, isolated groves throughout its range.  It occurs in
dense thickets as well as in open groves and sparse stands [30].  Dense
thickets are common in burned areas [29].  Sargent cypress is associated
with serpentine chaparral, and intergrades on less severe sites with
upper Sonoran mixed chaparral, montane chaparral, or knobcone pine
forest community types.  On more mesic sites the northern interior
cypress forest intergrades with mixed evergreen forest or montane
coniferous forest [12,16].  Sargent cypress is associated with redwood
(Sequoia sempervirens)-Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) forest and
associated North Coast forests in Mendocino County, California [8,33].
It is commonly associated with chaparral and gray pine (Pinus sabiniana)
throughout its range [4,16,29].  In some areas, Sargent cypress is
associated with yellow pine (Pinus ponderosa and P. jeffreyi) forests,
closed-cone coniferous woodlands, and pine-cedar-cypress pygmy forests
[11,26,33].  Sargent cypress occurs sympatrically with MacNab cypress in
Lake County, California, where it is larger and tends to occupy lower
slopes than MacNab cypress [22,29].

Publications naming Sargent cypress as a community dominant are listed
below.  

California chaparral [10]
The closed-cone pines and cypress [29] 
Preliminary descriptions of the terrestrial natural communities of
   California [12]

Species not previously mentioned but commonly associated with Sargent
cypress include sugar pine (Pinus lambertiana), Coulter pine (P.
coulteri), bigcone Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga macrocarpa), incense-cedar
(Libocedrus decurrens), bigleaf maple (Acer macrophyllum), California
scrub oak (Quercus dumosa), leather oak (Q. durata), huckleberry oak (Q.
vaccinifolia), musk brush (Ceanothus jepsonii), wedgeleaf ceanothus (C.
cuneatus), coyote ceanothus (C. ferrisae), dwarf ceanothus (C. pumilis),
bigberry manzanita (Arctostaphylos glauca), whiteleaf manzanita (A.
viscida), serpentine manzanita (A. obispoensis), Tamalpais manzanita (A.
pungens var. montana), hoary manzanita (A. canescens), Mariposa
manzanita (A. mariposa), chamise (Adenostoma fasciculatum), interior
silktassel (Garrya congdonii), boxleaf silktassel (G. buxifolia),
California bay (Umbellaria californica), chaparral yucca (Yucca
whipplei), tree poppy (Dendromecon rigida), yerba santa (Eriodictyon
californicum), California juniper (Juniperus californica), and
twistflower (Streptanthus spp.) [4,10,12,16,29].

Much of the information presented here is attributed to:
Esser, Lora L. 1994. Cupressus sargentii. In: Fire Effects Information System, [Online]. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laboratory (Producer). Available at USDA Forest Service.

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