Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Cryptomeria japonica remains avoid in the evidence table. The species record also carries 2 ecological invasive reports, kept apart from the computed direction.
Its 2 hardiness assertions are collected in hardiness evidence, while same-form alternatives appear under related plants. Those sections serve different comparisons around japonica: neither the hardiness material nor the alternative set replaces the evidence rows behind the avoid result. Keeping the four accepted facts distinct preserves the japanese cedar record's scope and makes each route useful without implying a genus-wide finding inside the named japonica species boundary.
Documented minimum 6a; no upper limit is documented.
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
2 ecological invasive reports.
Broader regional context
Federal context
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.
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.
Source prints 6 · single-value meaning unresolved · whole zone precision · source stated
Source taxon: Cryptomeria japonica · 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.
Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 15041, Temperature, Minimum (°F).
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 3 — 10–30 ft from the structure; thin vegetation, remove debris, and minimize plant massing [Fire Performance Plant Selector landscape zone] (with its avoid rating)
Guía de pirojardinería: not suitable inside the 25-metre maximum-risk zone [girona-2020-iuf-25m-suitability] (with its avoid rating)
Tree fire-protection classification in Hito to Shinrin: スギ — Table 10-2 [tadaki-kira-1982-fire-protection-power] (with its avoid 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.
Upright growing evergreen with green to blue needles in the adult form. Juvenile form is not cold hardy in northern regions. It has feathery purple foliage.
Cryptomeria japonica is rated “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.
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 sourcePrimary evidenceExpert-curatedlineage: independent (root of Japanese municipal fire-protection tree lists)
Table 10-2 prints スギ in the unsuitable 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 (85)Corroboration (85 rows from 1 source)
85 cited rows from this source; its identity, lineage and tier are stated once.
Primary study Belcher2016: Belcher, C. M. (2016). The influence of leaf morphology on litter flammability and its utility for interpreting palaeofire. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 371, 20150163.
Shared row context: plant part litter; fuel all; predrying yes; device calorimeter; site Belcher2016-1; sampling ND.
Primary study Cornwell2015: Cornwell, W. K., Elvira, A., van Kempen, L., van Logtestijn, R. S., Aptroot, A., & Cornelissen, J. H. (2015). Flammability across the gymnosperm phylogeny: the importance of litter particle size. New Phytologist, 206, 672-681.
Shared row context: plant part litter; fuel all; predrying yes; device burning bench; site Cornwell2015-1; sampling january to march.
Primary study Liu2013: Liu, M., Yi, L., Yu, S., Zhou, G., Jiang, H., & Li, X. (2013). Combustibility of fresh leaves of 26 forest species in China. Journal of Tropical Forest Science, 25, 528-536.
Shared row context: plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; device calorimeter; site Liu2013-1; sampling ND.
Primary study Seo2016: Seo, H.J., Park, J.-E., & Son, D.W. (2016). Combustion and thermal characteristics of Korean wood species. BioResources, 11, 7537-7550.
Shared row context: plant part wood; fuel dead; predrying yes; device calorimeter; site Seo2016-1; sampling ND.
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.
Shared row context: plant part leaves; fuel all; predrying yes; device burning bench; site Zhang2022-1; sampling january and march 2011.
“maximum flame temperature (°C): 713.51”
FLAMITS record 15555; Combustibility measurement.
“flaming duration (s): 3”
FLAMITS record 15596; Sustainability measurement.
Primary study Belcher2017: Belcher, C. M., & Hudspith, V. A. (2017). Changes to Cretaceous surface fire behaviour influenced the spread of the early angiosperms. New Phytologist, 213, 1521-1532.
Shared row context: plant part litter; fuel all; predrying no; device calorimeter; site Belcher2017-1; sampling .
Primary study Harada2001: Harada, T. (2001). Time to ignition, heat release rate and fire endurance time of wood in cone calorimeter test. Fire Materials, 25, 1617.
Shared row context: plant part wood; fuel dead; predrying yes; device calorimeter; site Harada2001-1; sampling ND.
