Santa Cruz Cypress         ku-PRES-us abram-si-A-na

• Evergreen conifer tree to 15-20 ft (~5-6 m) tall, gray bark fibrous, thin, broken in thick vertical strips or plates.  Branchlets cylindrical to slightly 4-sided, leaves scale-like 1-2 mm long, bright green.  Pollen cones 3-4 mm long; seed cones about 15–30 mm long, more or less spherical or elliptical, brown.  Seeds 3–5 mm, dull brown, glaucous or not, rough.
• Sun.  
• Hardy to USDA Zone 8   A rare tree native to the San Francisco Bay Area; more specifically on or near a few sandstone outcrops of the Santa Cruz Mountains at 1500-2600 ft (450-800 m).
• Now often listed as a variety of the Gowen Cypress (Cupressus goveniana), i.e., C. goveniana var. abramsiana.  Apparently it can be distinguished from other varieties of Gowen Cypress by its large cones, 15-30 mm in diameter, and by its brown and often glaucous seeds (The Gymnosperm Database).
• abramsiana: named by C.B. Wolf in 1948 to honor LeRoy Abrams (1874-1956), a professor of botany at Stanford University, who collected plants and published several books on California and PNW flora.
• Santa Cruz, California: U.C. Santa Cruz Arboretum