2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Cypress Dupre (Latin Cupressus dupreziana) - or Saharan cypress is such a rare tree on the planet that people easily counted the number of growing specimens and are now making plans for how to propagate the plant so that it does not disappear from the face of the Earth. The tree itself reproduces reluctantly, since it has a rather rare breeding method. And the lifeless sands of the Sahara Desert are slowly but surely reclaiming territories from a living tree.
What's in your name
The first word of the plant's name means its belonging to the genus Cypress (Latin Cupressus), which is part of the Cypress family (Latin Cupressaceae).
The second specific name "Saharan" speaks of the place of growth of the tree, which chose for itself the hot sands of the African Sahara Desert.
The Latin species name "dupreziana" ("Dupre") immortalized the name of the French captain Maurice Duprez (Maurice Duprez). This was done at the request of the French zoologist Louis Lavauden, who became a forester in Tunisia after the end of the First World War. It was he who first of all notified Maurice Dupre about his find of a special type of cypress on the high plateau of Tamrit in the Sahara Desert.
Thus, the plant got its Latin name, although the first news of the presence of coniferous Cypresses in the desert appeared in Europe in the second half of the 19th century from the Englishman Henry Baker Tristram, who traveled across the Great Sahara and wrote a book about it.
Description
Very ancient trees, which are estimated by scientists to be more than 2000 years old, have retained their unique population in the central part of the Sahara Desert. They keep away from other trees, being located hundreds of kilometers away from them. Botanists have counted only 233 specimens growing in the wild.
The highest of them reach 22 meters. Rare young growth looks more like a shrub, but gradually turns into a tree with one central trunk. The reddish-brown bark protecting the trunk is covered with longitudinal cracks. The branches form an angle of about 90 degrees with the trunk, and then stretch their ends towards the sky.
Saharan cypress differs from the more common evergreen cypress in the bluer color of its scaly leaves, densely located on the shoots. Each leaf has a white drop of resin. Small shoots are often flattened in one plane.
The size of the cones of Saharan cypress is almost 2 times smaller than that of evergreen cypress. Their length ranges from 1.5 to 2.5 cm. Spherical pink female cones, as they mature, change their color to gray-brown. Winged seeds are flattened, oval, red-brown.
The isolation and paucity of plants have created a unique way of reproduction, called by scientists "apomixis". Although the trees contain both male and female cones, the seeds develop solely from the genetic makeup of male pollen. Female cones do not participate in the genetic structure, and therefore do not perform a maternal function, but play the role of a nurse, providing the offspring with only nutrition.
The future of the Saharan cypress
Fortunately, among people there are those who are concerned about the continuation of the life of the unique plants of the Earth. On the territory of Australia, six kilometers from the capital of Canberra, an Arboretum is being created, in which it is planned to create 100 forest tracts of rare and endangered tree species.
Among them there will be a cypress forest, for which 1,300 seedlings of the unique Saharan Cypress or Dupre Cypress were specially grown.
As ornamental trees, Dupre Cypress can be found today in warm and dry places in southern Europe. After all, life in the Sahara has taught the tree to endure drought.
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