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Botanical Name: Chamaecyparis obtusa

Common Name: Hinoki Cypress
Origin: Japan
Location: CSW

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Notable Feature: A slow-growing evergreen tree with dense, dark green, spray-like foliage. There are many compact and dwarf forms that are highly valuable for rock gardens, troughs, and bonsai.

Habit: An evergreen conifer that grows 50 to 75 feet tall (to 120 feet tall in its native habitat) with a pyramidal shape. It features spreading branches with flattened horizontal, frond-like branchlets that droop at the ends.

Flower: Species is monoecious (separate male and female flowers borne on the same tree). Ornamentally insignificant. Male flowers are small, 1/8” long, reddish brown, and borne at the tips of branches; female flowers are slightly larger, round, and yellow-green.

Fruit: Small, round cones, 1/3” across, borne singly, orange-brown and short-stalked with numerous wrinkled scales. Ripen in the late summer in one year.

Foliage: Shiny dark green, fine, scale-like foliage with a silvery, waxy white, "x" shaped pattern beneath. Crushed foliage is aromatic.  

Bark: Gray-topped scaly, long ridges with reddish brown furrows and inner bark; peels in long, narrow strips.

Interesting Fact: It is grown for its very high quality timber in Japan, where it is used as a material for building palaces, temples, shrines, and table tennis blades. The wood is lemon-scented, light pinkish brown with a rich, straight grain, and is highly rot-resistant.

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