Current native
2
exact source areas
Home / Plants / Grow / Port Orford cedar
Port Orford cedar
Chamaecyparis lawsoniana
Your local evidence lens
Separate evidence questions, never one approval badge
A genus split is not a placement verdict. Set a ZIP to read the local documented split.
1. Fire evidence and conditions
- Fire evidence
- Highly flammable — location does not change the cited classification.
- Fire-performance conditions
- No test or rating condition is normalized.
- Fire ecology context
- No section-reviewed fire-ecology context is normalized.
- Placement evidence
- 3 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
- Evidence regions
- Catalonia, Spain; Dorset, United Kingdom; New Zealand; Tasmania, Australia; eastern US
- Maintenance
- No sourced horticultural maintenance assertion is normalized; fire-test conditions do not supply maintenance advice.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
- State distribution
- Documented in CA, DC, DE, MD, NJ, OH, OR, PA, WV.
- Native range
- Current cited native range in CA, OR.
- Introduced / established
- No introduced or established row is normalized; that does not prove native status.
- USDA hardiness
- Documented minimum 5b; no upper limit is documented.
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
- Legal-list status
- Set a location for an exact legal-list result; source silence is not clearance.
- Seed-list status
- Set a location to compare the separate state noxious-weed seed layer.
- Reported invasive here
- No ecological invasive report is normalized; that does not prove noninvasiveness.
- Broader regional context
- Aggregate AK, HI, and L48 evidence is shown only as regional context, never as an exact-state finding.
- Federal context
- Federal designations remain separate from state legal-list results.
How to read this page
The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.
- Form
- tree
- USDA hardiness
- Minimum 5b; upper limit not documented
- Mature height
- ~50 ft
- Light
- Full sun
- Water need
- moderate
- Current cited native range
- CA, OR
- Grows in
- CA, DC, DE, MD, NJ, OH, OR, PA +1
- Rated in
- Catalonia, Spain; Dorset, United Kingdom; New Zealand; Tasmania, Australia +1
- Family
- Cupressaceae
- Evidence
- 5 cited sources
Native and introduced range evidence
These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval. Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.
Current introduced
0
exact source areas
Qualified
0
doubtful or extinct source rows
2 native source areas
- California (CA)
- Oregon (OR)
Plant hardiness evidence
-
Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector
Source prints 5 · single-value meaning unresolved
-
USDA PLANTS Database — Plant Characteristics
Minimum 5b · no upper limit documented
Where its sources say to plant it
- Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector: Landscape Zone 3 — 10–30 ft from the structure; thin vegetation, remove debris, and minimize plant massing
- Fire Resisting Garden Plants for the Urban Fringe and Rur…: remove from the Building Protection Zone; avoid in the Fuel Modified Zone
- Guía de pirojardinería: not suitable inside or outside the 25-metre maximum-risk zone
The evidence
Avoids (4)
-
Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector
“NOT Firewise (4)”
Largest of falsecypress. Native of the west coast of the U.S. Thick bark up to 3" thick.
-
Fire Resisting Garden Plants for the Urban Fringe and Rural Areas
“High Flammability”
-
Protecting your home from wildfire — plants and tips that can reduce your risk
“Red traffic-light class — Lawson's Cypress”
The leaflet warns that dead, dry parts can produce flames over 2.5 m and advises against planting it directly beside a home or shed.
-
“MUY DESACONSEJADA”
Chamaecyparis lawsoniana is rated “MUY DESACONSEJADA” by the guide's qualitative IUF garden-suitability method. The method assumes species-specific care and integrates fire evidence with fuel structure, maintenance, origin, invasiveness, and expert fire-service experience.
Mid-scale / conditional (1)
-
Low Flammability Plants directory
“Moderate flammability”
Moderate flammability classification.
