Common Names

Cedro, cipres, sicop [Baja Verapaz, Guatemala], bac'il nuhkupat [Tzeltal at Tenejapa, Chiapas], Comitan juniper (Zanoni and Adams 1979).

Taxonomic notes

Type locality in Chiapas, 12 km S of Comitan; hence the epithet (Zanoni and Adams 1979).

Description

Trees to 10 m tall, usually with a single trunk branching several meters above base. Crown rounded or broadly pyramidal. Bark light ash-brown, about 5 mm thick, exfoliating in long strips. Terminal branchlets ascending to erect, branch tips straight, red-brown with scaly bark. Angle of branching on ultimate twigs 35-45°. Scale leaves green, mostly opposite, ovate with appressed acuminate tips, 1.5-2 mm long, margin finely toothed (requires a 20X hand lens); very slender ultimate branchlets (less than 1 mm thick); very weak odor due to unusually low terpenoid content (Zanoni and Adams 1979).

Range

Mexico: Chiapas, Hidalgo; Guatemala: Baja Verapaz, Huehuetenango, Zacapa. Occurs at 1300-1775(-2300) m elevation on dry, rocky slopes or canyons with shrubs or in sparse woodland, usually on limestone or dolomite. Commonly in Pinus-Quercus or Acacia-Ficus woodlands (Zanoni and Adams 1979, Farjon 2005).

Big Tree

Oldest

Dendrochronology

Ethnobotany

Observations

Remarks

Citations

Martínez. 1944. Anal. Inst. Biol. Mexico 15:12-13.

See Also

Farjon (2005) provides a detailed account, with illustrations.