Callitris intratropica

Location & distribution maps

Plant description

Common name:         Arnhem Cypress Pine  

• Common names include white cypress, white cypress-pine, Murray River cypress-pine, and northern cypress-pine

Conservation status: Least concern

Etymology:   

• The name ‘callitris’ is derived from the Greek calli (meaning beautiful) and treis (meaning three), because their scale-like leaves are in whorls of three

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Cones and seed:                            

• The cones are globose, 1–2 cm diameter,

• With six triangular scales, which open at maturity to release the seeds

Leaves:         

• The leaves are scale-like, 2–6 mm long and 0.5 mm broad

• Arranged in decussate whorls of three on very slender shoots 0.7–1 mm diameter

Stem & branches: 

• It is a small evergreen tree, 4–12 m (rarely to 20 m) high, with a trunk up to 50 cm diameter

Roots:         

Habit:        

• A coniferous tree

Habitat:   

Distribution:                  

• Native to most of Australia

• Has become naturalised in Hawaii and in southern Florida

Additional notes:     

• Taxonomy

  • Some authors (e.g. Thompson & Johnson 1986, followed by the Flora of Australia Online) divide it into three species (or occasionally as varieties), based largely on the foliage colour, with green plants predominating on the east coast of Australia, and glaucous plants in the interior, and on cone size, with on average marginally smaller cones in tropical areas (north of 22°S)

  • However, others (e.g. Blake 1959, Farjon 2005) point out that both the foliage colour and cone size is very variable, even from tree to tree in local populations, and maintain that it is impossible to distinguish three taxa within the species

  • When split into three species, the following names apply:

    • Callitris columellaris F.Muell. sensu stricto – coastal northeast New South Wales, southeast Queensland.

    • Callitris glaucophylla Joy Thomps. & L.A.S.Johnson (syn. C. columellaris var. campestris Silba; C. glauca nom. inval.; C. hugelii nom. inval.) – throughout most of the southern half of Australia.

    • Callitris intratropica R.T.Baker & H.G.Smith (syn. C. columellaris var. intratropica Silba) – northern Queensland, northern Northern Territory, northern Western Australia.

• Pollination

  • Eric Rolls described the pollination of C.columellaris thus: "At pollination time when hundreds of cones go off together with a sharp crack and spurt brown pollen a metre into the air, the whole tree shivers

Sources of information:

• (2023)