Chamaecyparis lawsoniana, Port Orford Cedar (9)
The Port Orford Cedar is a tall timber tree that can grow up to 100 feet tall. When mature, it is a single stemmed individual with soft, brown, fibrous bark. Its leaves are blue-green and scale like. It produces numerous, small, globular cones.
The Port Orford Cedar is prized as a timber species, especially for ship-building (Stuart and Sawyer, 2001). Today, it can be found in limited distribution on the northern California and Oregon coasts (Barbour and Major, 1988). It is a shade tolerant plant that prefers moisture rich soils that are found in coastal areas. It can also be found inland on Serpentine outcrops (Cockrell, 1976; Ornduff, 1974).
Serpentine, the California State Rock, is found only on the Pacific Coast and mostly in California. It is formed as a result of tectonic action, which there is plenty of in California. When outcrops of Serpentine weather to form soils, they result in a substrate that is toxic to many plants. As a result, areas with Serpentine soils support very specific and sometimes rare communities of plant life (Ornduff, 1974).