‘THE PIUTE CYPRESS by Ernest C. Twisselmann Cholame, California Until recently, the Piute cypress (Cupressus nevadensis Abrans) has been known from only two colonies in the Piute Mountains of Kern County, Califor nia. These colonies have been thoroughly discussed by Carl Wolf (1918). Wow, two additional stations can be reported for this Kern County endemic. The first of these is on the east slope of the Greenhorn Range, the southern extension of the Great Western Divide of the Sierra Nevada, and is imnedi- ately beside the Greenhorn Pass highway, 2.9 niles west of Wofford Heights (my collection No. 6123). When I first saw the colony én May kt, 1961, it consisted of only three trees. These grew in the bed of a small ephemeral creek that is dry by late spring (or, in dry years, having water for only a brief period in early spring). This creek bed is a jumble of granite boulders and blocks. The nearby rocky slopes are covered with sparse chaparral and soattered digeer pines in places that offer protection to a degree from fire, Fron the general appearance of the area, I surmised that ‘the cypresses might well be the survivors of a much nore extensive colony that had been swept by fire, perhaps repeatedly. In October, 1961, my theory was given a sounder basis vhen a wild fire swept that region. Tyo of the ‘three trees were burned; one was spared by a margin of less than ten feet. So the Sierra Nevade occurrence of the Piute cypress now consists of only this tree. Located immediately beside a new heavily traveled highway, it is probable that this lone cypress will not for long survive the activities attendant on the greatly increased recreational use of the region. However, the record of the three trees will serve to place the species in the Sierra Nevadal, and finally to give geographic validity to Abrans' specific epithet. Mre. Charlotte Nash Smith, a Granite Station rancher who has an intimate Knowledge of the botany of the Greenhorn Range, has written me that she has no knowledge of any other Piute cypresses in the Greenhorn Range or other portions of the southern Sierra Nevada. She further states that neither the late Howard Bilton, long-time predator control officer for the Califor~ nia Fish and Gane Commission, nor the late Robert Beard, a United States Forest Service Ranger, both of whom had a keen knowledge of the trees of ‘the southern Sierra, knew of any other colony. ‘The Greenhom colony hed been known to Mrs. Smith; she first observed it in the late 1930's, but she didn't realize its significance. TNeither botantists nor geologists are in complete agreement on the southern limits of the Sierra Nevada. However, most geologists end the western and central portion at South Fork Valley and lower Kern River Gan~ yon. Thus, Dreckenridge Mountain and the Pinte Mts., while associated with the Sierran system, are not usually considered part of it.For details on the second recently discovered colony I am indebted to Mr. Janes R. 8. Toland, District Ranger, Greenhorn District, U. S. Forest Service. He reports (pers. comn.) that there is a grove of approximately forty acres on rugged Hobo Ridge on the north slope of Breckenridge Mt. (a fault block mountain separated fron the Greenhom Range by the Kem River gorge). This is a colony of well-developed trees, the largest about thirty feet tall with a trunk dianeter at breast height of approximately ten inches. The colony grows on a steep north slope, at the upper levels of the digger pine belt at an elevation of about 3500 fect. Of the two previously reported stations, the best kmown by far is the grove a few miles south of Dodfish in the region of Bodfish Pesk at the north end of Piute Mountain. This is the type locality and is described in detail by Wolf. Here there are thousands of trees of all ages. The best-developed trees are at the lower elevations and it might be well to repeat what Wolf implied, For the most part, the best specimens grow on private land, below the National Forest boundaries, where considereble cutting and clearing of oth cypress and chaparral has occurred. (According to Wolf, the tree was once much cut for fence posts.) As one goes up the mountain, the chaparral ecomes dense and the trees are quite snall and either spindly or shrubby. Tt is, then, a tree that is at its best with a minimim of competition and a maximm of sunlight, especially on the lower branches which have a tendency to die back in shaded situations. The fourth known grove is the Back Canyon grove, about 20 miles southeast of the Eodfish grove, at the south end of Piute Mountain. It consists at most of a few hundred mostly senescent trees, in the nost arid region of the four. Probably the only reason this grove has not been exterminated or severely reduced is that the sparse brush and generally scant vegetation of the region render it incapable of carrying a really devastating fire. Further, ite isolated location, far fron the nearest public road and in a region Of relatively little hunan activity, has been a factor favorable to ite survival. To sumarize briefly the four known localities for the tree: Tae Greenhorn ocourrence, consisting of but a single surviving tree, probably the remnant of a much larger grove, grows in a quite arid region of sparse chapazral and ocoasional digger pines, in poor granitic largely rocky soi) slong an ephemeral creek on a hot dry slope. It is nine miles nortimest of the Dodfish grove. The Hobo Ridge grove, approximately 5 miles west of the Dodfish grove, though small is a healthy colony growing in good soil of granitic origin, on a steep north slope, in a situation that approximates that of the Dodfish grove. ‘The Back Canyon grove grows in decomposed granite and black clay in the most arid region of the four. Thk Dodfish grove grovs in a variety of soils, from fractured rock to fairly deep top soil and is probebly most abundant in red clay. (Specialized soil needs, it would appear, are nob a limiting factor in the tree's distribution.) The steep slopes of Bodfish Feak and Dald Eagle Poak, the ridge summits at the north end of Piute Mountain, shelter the grove from the hot winds that funnel through Kern Cenyon end South Fork Valley. The climate is the least arid of the four localities and it is here that the tree is at its best.When contemplating a rare or vanishing plant, one always ponders the often baffling question "why?" There is a fairly plausible explanation to account for the limited range of the Piute cypress. If we accept the theory, brilli- antly sumarized by Daniel I. Axolrod (1958), that until the late Pliocene the Mojave Desert was an arid woodland, and further if we accept Wolf's con cept that Cupressus nevadensis is mst closely related to 0. arizonica Greene, a tree common from southern Arizona to western Texas, it is easy to postulate that C. nevadensis is a relic precariously surviving on tho western edge of that once vast woodland. Support is given this theory by the presence of Arizona hackberry (Celtis reticulata Torr.) at Caliente Canyon on the south vorder of the Breckenridge-Piute complex, at Democrat Hot Springs in Kern Canyon, and at Lone Pine at the extreme northvest corner of the Mojave Desert. The hackberry is common in Arizona and the Southwest beyond the Mojave Desert. Harlan Lewis (1960) has used the same reasoning to account for the distribu- tion of Trichostena austromontanum Lewis. Its probable parents were T. oblongum Benth. and T. micranthun Gray. The first is now restricted to the Sierra Wevada, the second to the Sen Sernardino Mountains and to a single station in northern Baja California, and to another in northwestern Arizona. Obviously, they were both once cympatric. The hybrid, T. austronontanum, is not uncommon in favorable years in the meadows of the yellow pine forests of the Piute Mountains and at Squirrel Meadow on Breckenridge Mountain. ‘The fossil record, although scant, is perhaps even more impressive. Fossil Cupressus mohavensis was discovered in a Miocene bed in Sand Canyon, only eleven miles south of the Back Canyon grove of C. nevadensis. Axelrod (1939) relates it very closely to C. arizonica, The remainder of the fossil flora from Sand Canyon suggests a climate and a flora similar to that now existing at Bodfish Peak and Hobo Ridge, although scnewhat warmer and perhaps slightly nore arid. On the other hand, the present pinyon-California juniper associe- tion at Sand Canyon, while quite different from chaparral and digger pine associations, would require only minor and perhaps merely subtle climatic changes to be replaced by them. (Indeed, the floor of Send Canyon has a tow obviously senescent digger pines.) It appears quite likely that the long- term drying of the local. climate is well on its way to extinguish the Back Canyon Cupressus nevadensis population, in probably the sane way in which the Sand Canyon fossil C. mohavensis was exterminated. Another fossil record shows the more recent desert occurrence of a cypress closely related to C. arizonica and C. nevadensis. This comes from the Ricardo flora of Last Chance Canyon in the central part of the El Paso Range, a region now occupied by typical Mojavean creosote bush and desert canyon associations. The record, reported by Webber (1933), was of wood, and he was unable to arrive at a specific determination. It does, however, estab- lish the fact that at least as recently as Pliocene time a Cupressus not un- like C. nevadensis grew on the Mojave Desert. Further it and the other Ricardo fossil species show that at least as recently as Pliocene tine, the picturesque very xerophytic Last Chance Canyon region maintained a woodland similar to that now found in the region occupied by the Piute cypress. (The Bodfish grove is about thirty miles west of Last Chance Canyon, the Back Canyon grove about twenty miles southwest.)