Cunninghamia

Cunninghamia is a genus of one or two living species of evergreen coniferous trees in the cypress family Cupressaceae. They are native to China, northern Vietnam and Laos, and perhaps also Cambodia. They may reach 70 m (230 ft) in height. In vernacular use, it is most often known as Cunninghamia, but is also sometimes called "China-fir". The genus name Cunninghamia honours Dr. James Cunningham, a British doctor who introduced this species into cultivation in 1702 and botanist Allan Cunningham.

Cunninghamia

Micromesistius · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
CunninghamioideaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Streptophyta

Time the record covers

At least 69 million years on record.

The record covers at least 72.2 Mya to 2.58 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 83.6 Mya to 774 ka.

Late Cretaceous — about 3 of 33 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 33 occurrencesEocene — about 2 of 33 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 6 of 33 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 18 of 33 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 3 of 33 occurrencesPleistocene — about 1 of 33 occurrences85–82 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences82–80 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences80–77 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences77–74 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences74–71 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences71–68 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences68–65 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences57–54 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences54–51 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences51–48 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences48–45 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences45–43 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences43–40 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences40–37 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences37–34 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences34–31 Mya — about 1 occurrence31–28 Mya — about 1 occurrence28–26 Mya — about 2 occurrences26–23 Mya — about 2 occurrences23–20 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences20–17 Mya — about 1 occurrence17–14 Mya — about 3 occurrences14–11 Mya — about 11 occurrences11–8.5 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences8.5–5.7 Mya — about 1 occurrence5.7–2.8 Mya — about 3 occurrences2.8–0 Mya — about 1 occurrence72.2 Mya2.58 Mya85 Mya0 Mya

33 occurrences of Cunninghamia on record, most of them in the Miocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

33 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

10 formations

Tokoname — 34.67°N, 136.92°EHorseshoe Canyon — 51.47°N, 112.77°WJohn Day — 44.64°N, 120.30°WSalmon City — 45.18°N, 113.88°WOla — 60.17°N, 150.49°EAkeyo — 35.36°N, 137.18°ETumenzi — 43.32°N, 128.16°EXiananshan — 29.15°N, 121.23°EAllenby — 49.45°N, 120.57°WOhanapecosh — 45.86°N, 122.21°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Cunninghamia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 23 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Cunninghamia and its relatives

Miocene

Where Cunninghamia and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

311 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Cunninghamia, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

17 references

Each of the 33 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 5 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Cunninghamia

Credit
Micromesistius
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Cunninghamia was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itCunninghamioideae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Brown