Fokienia
Encyclopedia
Fokienia is a genus in the family
Cupressaceae
. In its characteristics, Fokienia is intermediate between the genera of Chamaecyparis
and Calocedrus
, though genetically much closer to the former. The genus comprises only one living species
, Fokienia hodginsii or Fujian Cypress, and one fossil
species (Fokienia ravenscragensis).
Fokienia hodginsii is native from southeastern China (provinces of Zhejiang
, Guizhou
, Yunnan
and Fujian
) to Northern Vietnam
(provinces of Ha Bac, Ha Giang
, Ha Tinh
, Hoa Binh
, Son La
, Nghe An, Lao Cai
, Lai Chau
, Thanh Hoa
, Tuyen Quang
, Yen Bai
and Vinh Phu), west central Vietnam (provinces of Dac Lac, Gia Lai, Lam Dong), and west to northern Laos
. The name derives from the old Romanised
name of Fujian province, China, from where the first specimen was introduced to Europe, collected by Captain Hodgins in 1908.
It is an evergreen
tree, 25–30 m tall. It has greyish-brownish bark
that peels off when the tree is young. On older trees, the bark presents longitudinal fissures and becomes aromatic. The leaves
are arranged in flattened branchlet systems, with the branchlets in one plane. The leaves on adult trees are in opposite decussate pairs, the alternating pairs not evenly spaced so appearing as whorls of 4 at the same level; they are sub-acute, about 2–5 mm long, glossy green above, and with white stomatal bands below. The lateral leaves are ovate and compressed, and facial leaves are oblanceolate with a triangular apex. On young trees, the leaves are larger, up to 8–10 mm long and 6 mm broad.
The male cone
s are oval or cylindrical, around 2.5 mm long, terminal on the shoots. They have from 3 to 5 pairs of scales. The female cones are much larger, 15–25 mm long and 14–22 mm broad, globose or sub-globose, and ripen in the second year. They have 5-8 pairs of scales. There are two winged seed
s on each scale. They are around 4 mm long, angular and pointed. On the upper and lower surfaces there are 2 large resin
blister
s. The wings are lateral and very unequal.
The tree does not tolerate shade, and requires mild climate and abundant rainfall to grow best. It occurs mainly on humid soil
in montane habitats
. In Vietnam, it grows on limestone
or granite
terrain above 900 m altitude.
The fossil species Fokienia ravenscragensis was described from the early Paleocene
(60-65 m.a. before present) Ravenscrag formation of southwest Saskatchewan
and adjacent Alberta
, Canada
.
and Dao
tribesmen use Fujian cypress timber for wall partitioning or roofing. The timber was formerly used for coffin
s. In Vietnam, it is considered a precious timber because of its characteristic aroma and its exceptional weight; therefore it is used to make art works, pieces of furniture, and charcoal
of high heat value. It is a threatened species in Vietnam.
Distillation
, especially of its root, gives an essential oil
used in cosmetics
and medicine
.
Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...
Cupressaceae
Cupressaceae
The Cupressaceae or cypress family is a conifer family with worldwide distribution. The family includes 27 to 30 genera , which include the junipers and redwoods, with about 130-140 species in total. They are monoecious, subdioecious or dioecious trees and shrubs from 1-116 m tall...
. In its characteristics, Fokienia is intermediate between the genera of Chamaecyparis
Chamaecyparis
Chamaecyparis is a genus of conifers in the cypress family Cupressaceae, native to eastern Asia and western and eastern North America. In the nursery trade it is often incorrectly known as "false cypress" for lack of other common name, so as to distinguish it from other similar genera bearing...
and Calocedrus
Calocedrus
Calocedrus is a genus of three species of coniferous trees in the cypress family Cupressaceae.The generic name means "beautiful cedar".-Description:...
, though genetically much closer to the former. The genus comprises only one living species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
, Fokienia hodginsii or Fujian Cypress, and one fossil
Fossil
Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...
species (Fokienia ravenscragensis).
Fokienia hodginsii is native from southeastern China (provinces of Zhejiang
Zhejiang
Zhejiang is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. The word Zhejiang was the old name of the Qiantang River, which passes through Hangzhou, the provincial capital...
, Guizhou
Guizhou
' is a province of the People's Republic of China located in the southwestern part of the country. Its provincial capital city is Guiyang.- History :...
, Yunnan
Yunnan
Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately and with a population of 45.7 million . The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with...
and Fujian
Fujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
) to Northern Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
(provinces of Ha Bac, Ha Giang
Ha Giang
Hà Giang is a town in northeastern Vietnam. It is the capital of Ha Giang province. The town has an area of 168.7 km² and population of 40,000 inhabitants.-Administration:Hà Giang is divided into one city and ten districts:Bắc MêBắc Quang...
, Ha Tinh
Ha Tinh
Hà Tĩnh is a city in Vietnam. It is the capital of the Ha Tinh province, in Vietnam's north central coast....
, Hoa Binh
Hoa Binh
Hòa Bình is a city in Vietnam. It is the capital of Hoa Binh province and is located 76 kilometres from Hanoi, a 5 kilometres from the Da River. The Battle of Hoa Binh was fought around the city in 1951-52 during the First Indochina War.-References:...
, Son La
Son La
Sơn La is a city in northwestern Vietnam. It is the capital of the Son La province....
, Nghe An, Lao Cai
Lao Cai
Lào Cai is a city in northeastern Vietnam. It is the capital of Lao Cai province. The city borders the city of Hekou, in the Yunnan province of Southwest China. It lies at the junction of the Red River and the Nam Ti River approximately 160 miles northwest of Hanoi...
, Lai Chau
Lai Chau
Lai Châu is the capital town of Lai Chau province in the Northwest region of Vietnam....
, Thanh Hoa
Thanh Hóa
Thanh Hóa is the capital city of Vietnam's Thanh Hoa province. The population is nearly 200,000 with an area of only 57.9 square kilometers....
, Tuyen Quang
Tuyen Quang
-History:The French post at Tuyen Quang was defended for four months against 12,000 troops of the Yunnan Army and the Black Flag Army by two companies of the French Foreign Legion during the Sino-French War...
, Yen Bai
Yen Bai
Yên Bái is a city and urban district in Vietnam. It is the capital of the Yen Bai province, in northeastern Vietnam. As of 2003 the district had a population of 78,016. The district covers an area of 58 km²....
and Vinh Phu), west central Vietnam (provinces of Dac Lac, Gia Lai, Lam Dong), and west to northern Laos
Laos
Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...
. The name derives from the old Romanised
Romanization
In linguistics, romanization or latinization is the representation of a written word or spoken speech with the Roman script, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system . Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written...
name of Fujian province, China, from where the first specimen was introduced to Europe, collected by Captain Hodgins in 1908.
It is an evergreen
Evergreen
In botany, an evergreen plant is a plant that has leaves in all seasons. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage during the winter or dry season.There are many different kinds of evergreen plants, both trees and shrubs...
tree, 25–30 m tall. It has greyish-brownish bark
Bark
Bark is the outermost layers of stems and roots of woody plants. Plants with bark include trees, woody vines and shrubs. Bark refers to all the tissues outside of the vascular cambium and is a nontechnical term. It overlays the wood and consists of the inner bark and the outer bark. The inner...
that peels off when the tree is young. On older trees, the bark presents longitudinal fissures and becomes aromatic. The leaves
Leaf
A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....
are arranged in flattened branchlet systems, with the branchlets in one plane. The leaves on adult trees are in opposite decussate pairs, the alternating pairs not evenly spaced so appearing as whorls of 4 at the same level; they are sub-acute, about 2–5 mm long, glossy green above, and with white stomatal bands below. The lateral leaves are ovate and compressed, and facial leaves are oblanceolate with a triangular apex. On young trees, the leaves are larger, up to 8–10 mm long and 6 mm broad.
The male cone
Conifer cone
A cone is an organ on plants in the division Pinophyta that contains the reproductive structures. The familiar woody cone is the female cone, which produces seeds. The male cones, which produce pollen, are usually herbaceous and much less conspicuous even at full maturity...
s are oval or cylindrical, around 2.5 mm long, terminal on the shoots. They have from 3 to 5 pairs of scales. The female cones are much larger, 15–25 mm long and 14–22 mm broad, globose or sub-globose, and ripen in the second year. They have 5-8 pairs of scales. There are two winged seed
Seed
A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...
s on each scale. They are around 4 mm long, angular and pointed. On the upper and lower surfaces there are 2 large resin
Resin
Resin in the most specific use of the term is a hydrocarbon secretion of many plants, particularly coniferous trees. Resins are valued for their chemical properties and associated uses, such as the production of varnishes, adhesives, and food glazing agents; as an important source of raw materials...
blister
Blister
A blister is a small pocket of fluid within the upper layers of the skin, typically caused by forceful rubbing , burning, freezing, chemical exposure or infection. Most blisters are filled with a clear fluid called serum or plasma...
s. The wings are lateral and very unequal.
The tree does not tolerate shade, and requires mild climate and abundant rainfall to grow best. It occurs mainly on humid soil
Soil
Soil is a natural body consisting of layers of mineral constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent materials in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics...
in montane habitats
Habitat (ecology)
A habitat is an ecological or environmental area that is inhabited by a particular species of animal, plant or other type of organism...
. In Vietnam, it grows on limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
or granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
terrain above 900 m altitude.
The fossil species Fokienia ravenscragensis was described from the early Paleocene
Paleocene
The Paleocene or Palaeocene, the "early recent", is a geologic epoch that lasted from about . It is the first epoch of the Palaeogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era...
(60-65 m.a. before present) Ravenscrag formation of southwest Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....
and adjacent Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
.
Uses
LaotianLaos
Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...
and Dao
Yao people
The Yao nationality is a government classification for various minorities in China. They form one of the 55 ethnic minority groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China, where they reside in the mountainous terrain of the southwest and south...
tribesmen use Fujian cypress timber for wall partitioning or roofing. The timber was formerly used for coffin
Coffin
A coffin is a funerary box used in the display and containment of dead people – either for burial or cremation.Contemporary North American English makes a distinction between "coffin", which is generally understood to denote a funerary box having six sides in plan view, and "casket", which...
s. In Vietnam, it is considered a precious timber because of its characteristic aroma and its exceptional weight; therefore it is used to make art works, pieces of furniture, and charcoal
Charcoal
Charcoal is the dark grey residue consisting of carbon, and any remaining ash, obtained by removing water and other volatile constituents from animal and vegetation substances. Charcoal is usually produced by slow pyrolysis, the heating of wood or other substances in the absence of oxygen...
of high heat value. It is a threatened species in Vietnam.
Distillation
Distillation
Distillation is a method of separating mixtures based on differences in volatilities of components in a boiling liquid mixture. Distillation is a unit operation, or a physical separation process, and not a chemical reaction....
, especially of its root, gives an essential oil
Essential oil
An essential oil is a concentrated hydrophobic liquid containing volatile aroma compounds from plants. Essential oils are also known as volatile oils, ethereal oils or aetherolea, or simply as the "oil of" the plant from which they were extracted, such as oil of clove...
used in cosmetics
Cosmetics
Cosmetics are substances used to enhance the appearance or odor of the human body. Cosmetics include skin-care creams, lotions, powders, perfumes, lipsticks, fingernail and toe nail polish, eye and facial makeup, towelettes, permanent waves, colored contact lenses, hair colors, hair sprays and...
and medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
.
