× Hesperotropsis notabilis
Credits
Article from New Trees by John Grimshaw & Ross Bayton
Recommended citation
'× Hesperotropsis notabilis' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.
Family
- Cupressaceae
Genus
- × Hesperotropsis
- Hesperocyparis arizonica var. glabra × Callitropsis nootkatensis
Common Names
- Alice Holt Cypress
- Noble Cypress
Synonyms
- × Cupressocyparis notabilis A.F.Mitch.
- Cupressus × notabilis (A.F.Mitch.) Silba
- × Cuprocyparis notabilis (A.F.Mitch.) Farjon
- × Neocupropsis notabilis (A.F.Mitch.) de Laub.
Editorial Note
The text below combines the accounts from New Trees (Grimshaw & Bayton 2009) and Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles (v. 5, the supplement; Clarke 1988) which discussed this hybrid conifer under the old names × Cuprocyparis notabilis and × Cupressocyparis notabilis respectively. We have moved these texts here, unaltered, under the correct modern name with appropriate synonymy, to bring these accounts in line with modern taxonomic treatments. For an in-depth overview of the studies that prompted this change, see both the × Hesperotropsis genus account and the Callitropsis genus account.
The main text for this and other implicated taxa will be updated when sponsorship is forthcoming; if you would like to support the revision of these accounts please contact the editors.
TC, October 2024.
Tree to 20 m or more. Bark reddish brown to purple, scaly or flaky with patches of several different colours adjacent to each other. Crown conical, broader and more open than in ×C. leylandii. Major branches ascending. Foliage branches flattened, pendulous, yellowish green with brown tinge, later becoming violet. Leaves blue-green with slight greyish bloom, decussate, imbricate, apex acute. Male strobili terminal, solitary, ovoid, yellowish. Seed cones globose, 12–18 mm diameter, cone blue-green with whitish bloom, ripening to dark brown, persistent after seed dispersal. Seed scales in two to four decussate pairs, valvate. Farjon 2005c. Distribution Only in cultivation. USDA Hardiness Zone 6 (?). Illustration NT302. Cross-references S198, K101.
The hybrid tree ×Cuprocyparis notabilis resulted from a chance cross in the 1950s between Cupressus arizonica var. glabra and Xanthocyparis nootkatensis at Leighton Hall, Powys, where its older half-sibling ×Cuprocyparis leylandii had appeared previously. Fortunately it is less common than this latter, as it also forms a tall shaggy column with pendulous shoots. A redeeming feature is the attractive mottled bark inherited from its mother. There are specimens of 15 m and over in several UK arboreta, the champion recognised by TROBI being a specimen at Westonbirt of 22 m in 2001. Another very fine tree at Wakehurst Place that has not been measured recently must, however, be almost as tall as this.
From the Supplement [to Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles] (Vol. V)
† × C. notabilis A.F. Mitchell – A hybrid between Cupressus glabra and Chamaecyparis nootkatensis, raised in the Forestry Commission’s Genetics Nursery at Alice Holt, Hampshire. The seeds were collected in 1956 from a tree of C. glabra growing at Leighton Hall near to the Nootka cypress which forty-five years earlier had produced × C. leylandii (‘Leighton Green’ and ‘Naylor’s Blue’). Of the seedlings raised, two were abnormal and proved to be of hybrid origin. Planted at Alice Holt, one of the seedlings had attained 41 × 3 ft by 1980 and was accidentally felled a year later. The other measures 39 × 21⁄2 + 2 ft (1979). A propagation at Westonbirt, Gloucestershire, measures 40 × 2 ft (1980).
The Alice Holt cypress makes a narrow specimen of greyish aspect, with rather open sprays. See further in: A. F. Mitchell, Conifers in the British Isles (1972), p. 95 and fig. 71.
