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Hinoki falsecypress

Chamaecyparis obtusa · Cupressaceae · all Chamaecyparis records

Your local evidence lens

Separate evidence questions, never one approval badge

Set a ZIP to compare this record with state distribution, native range, USDA hardiness, and invasive records.

A genus split is not a placement verdict. Set a ZIP to read the local documented split.

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence: Mixed evidence — 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: Global; Japan; Michigan / Great Lakes; Ohio / Midwest; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic; eastern US
Maintenance: No sourced horticultural maintenance assertion is normalized; fire-test conditions do not supply maintenance advice.

Typed publication scope: 3 scopes across 3 cited fire sources

Wildfire-resistant Landscape Plants for Michigan (Extension Bulletin E2948) · Official scoped edition
- MI; partial normalized coverage · 2007-01-01
  Michigan State University Extension Bulletin E2948 is explicitly a list of wildfire-resistant landscape plants for Michigan and includes a Michigan-native field. FireApproved publishes 221 exact GBIF owners from 226 represented source rows and holds 15 complex or non-exact rows. This dated publication scope is not a current site-suitability determination.
Firewise Landscaping (OSU Extension Bulletin 921) · Official scoped edition
- OH; partial normalized coverage · 2006-03-01
  Ohio State University Extension Bulletin 921 is an Ohio publication that describes Ohio fire seasons and landscape conditions and labels nativity to Ohio. FireApproved publishes 352 exact source-owning plant records from its eight rated tables. This historical publication scope does not assert current extension endorsement or that a listed plant suits every Ohio site.
Virginia Firescapes — Firewise Landscaping for Woodland Homes (430-300) · Official scoped edition
- VA; partial normalized coverage · 2009-04-15
  Virginia Cooperative Extension's publication opens with Virginia wildfire conditions, identifies its Virginia Firewise Landscaping Task Force, and labels plants native to Virginia. FireApproved publishes 306 exact source owners. Publication scope does not establish parcel suitability or current endorsement of this archived 2009 list.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution: Documented in DC, DE, MD, NJ, OH, PA, WV.
Native range: No current cited or legacy state native range is normalized.
Introduced / established: 1 sourced range or established record; set a location to match them. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness: Documented range 5–8.

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.

Hinoki falsecypress (Chamaecyparis obtusa) — Photo: (c) 呂一起(Lyu yi-chi), some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

Form: shrub
USDA hardiness: 5–8
Mature height: ~10 ft
Light: Full sun
Grows in: DC, DE, MD, NJ, OH, PA, WV
Rated in: Global; Japan; Michigan / Great Lakes; Ohio / Midwest +2
Family: Cupressaceae
Evidence: 8 cited sources

Plant hardiness evidence

These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.

Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector · record chamaecyparis-obtusa · 2016-wayback · as of 2026-08-26

Source prints 5 · single-value meaning unresolved · whole zone precision · source stated

Source taxon: Chamaecyparis obtusa · exact match.

Source location: Cold Hardiness Zone field in the recovered selector record.

Not used for comparison: The recovered selector prints one Cold Hardiness Zone value but does not define it as a minimum threshold or a one-zone range.
Wildfire-resistant Landscape Plants for Michigan (Extension Bulletin E2948) · record shrub:Chamaecyparis obtusa · New, January 2007 · as of 2026-08-26

5–8 explicit range · whole zone precision · source stated

Source taxon: Chamaecyparis obtusa · exact match.

Source location: Table 1, shrub row.

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector: Landscape Zone 2 — 5–10 ft from the structure; maintained lawn or fuel breaks, with easily ignited evergreens avoided [Fire Performance Plant Selector landscape zone] (with its avoid rating)
Firewise Landscaping: keep 30 ft from the home (Zone 3) [OSU B921 source-category siting] (with its avoid rating)
Tree fire-protection classification in Hito to Shinrin: ヒノキ — Table 10-2 [tadaki-kira-1982-fire-protection-power] (mid-scale rating)

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Avoids (3)

Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector — USDA Forest Service Northeastern Area S&PF + state Firewise programs (WV, OH, PA, DE, DC, MD, NJ) · 2016-wayback · original source Primary evidence Keyed curation lineage: ufifas-srs-tree

“NOT Firewise (4)”

Branches form in fans-many sizes available.
Firewise Landscaping (OSU Extension Bulletin 921) — Ohio State University Extension (Sydnor, Steward, Kloss / Ohio DNR Division of Forestry) · 2006 · original source Primary evidence Expert-curated lineage: ufifas-srs-tree

“H flammability”

Requires good drainage; variable urban adaptability.
Virginia Firescapes — Firewise Landscaping for Woodland Homes (430-300) — Virginia Cooperative Extension / Virginia Tech (Appleton, Frenzel, Hillegass, Lyons, Steward — Virginia Firewise Landscaping Task Force) · 2009 · original source Primary evidence Expert-curated lineage: ufifas-srs-tree

“H flammability”

Requires good drainage.

Mid-scale / conditional (1)

Tree fire-protection classification in Hito to Shinrin (人と森林) — Kyoritsu Shuppan; table reproduced by Kagoshima Prefecture · Hito to Shinrin (1982), Table 10-2; Kagoshima web reproduction · original source Primary evidence Expert-curated lineage: independent (root of Japanese municipal fire-protection tree lists)

“中” · score 2 (tadaki-kira-fire-protection-power-0-3)

Table 10-2 prints ヒノキ in the medium fire-protection-power class. The Kagoshima reproduction says highly fire-protective trees can slow spread, promote upward dispersal of heat and smoke, and intercept flying embers.

Listed without a rating (3)

FLAMITS: FLAMmability plant traiTS database — Dryad / Global Ecology and Biogeography · Dryad version 9 · original source Corroboration Trait database lineage: meta-aggregator

3 cited rows from this source; its identity, lineage and tier are stated once.
- “calorific value (kcal/kg): 4308.77” · score 4308.77 (FLAMITS — calorific value (kcal/kg))
  
  FLAMITS record 3605; Combustibility measurement; plant part bark; fuel dead; predrying no; device thermal analyzer; site Gani2007-1; sampling ND. Primary study Gani2007: Gani, A., & Naruse, I. (2007). Effect of cellulose and lignin content on pyrolysis and combustion characteristics for several types of biomass. Renewable energy, 32, 649-661.
- “maximum flame temperature (°C): 641.8866667” · score 641.8866667 (FLAMITS — maximum flame temperature (°C))
  
  FLAMITS record 15554; Combustibility measurement; plant part leaves; fuel all; predrying yes; device burning bench; site Zhang2022-1; sampling january and march 2011. Primary study Zhang2022: Zhang, S., Cornwell, W. K., Zhao, W., van Logtestijn, R. S., Krab, E. J., Aerts, R., & Cornelissen, J. H. (2022). Experimental evidence that leaf litter decomposability and flammability are decoupled across gymnosperm species. Journal of Ecology, 111, 761-772.
- “flaming duration (s): 3.333333333” · score 3.333333333 (FLAMITS — flaming duration (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 15595; Sustainability measurement; plant part leaves; fuel all; predrying yes; device burning bench; site Zhang2022-1; sampling january and march 2011. Primary study Zhang2022: Zhang, S., Cornwell, W. K., Zhao, W., van Logtestijn, R. S., Krab, E. J., Aerts, R., & Cornelissen, J. H. (2022). Experimental evidence that leaf litter decomposability and flammability are decoupled across gymnosperm species. Journal of Ecology, 111, 761-772.

Fire-resistant shrubs instead

Snowberry
Symphoricarpos albus

Pomegranate
Punica granatum

High bush blueberry
Vaccinium corymbosum

American beautyberry
Callicarpa americana

Common witchhazel
Hamamelis virginiana

Winterberry holly
Ilex verticillata

Fire-resistant shrubs listed above

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata · ITIS

Chamaecyparis obtusa (Hinoki falsecypress). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/chamaecyparis-obtusa/. Last verified 2026-08-23.