Talk:Cupressus torulosa

New exceptionally tall tree

I've removed this, as the China Daily article is in error in reporting it as Cupressus torulosa (a species only verified from >1200 km further west in the western Himalaya); other sources, notably the China Global Times and a youtube video of the tree cite it as 'Tibetan Cypress', i.e., Cupressus gigantea. The China Daily error likely arises from the past confusion of C. gigantea with C. torulosa (already mentioned on the Cupressus gigantea page). However, I also checked with the Director of the Cupressus Conservation Project; he considers it is more likely to be Cupressus austrotibetica (which doesn't have a wikipedia article yet). - MPF (talk) 00:51, 31 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for checking this! The original Chinese reporting named the species as 西藏柏木, which is C. torulosa, the Chinese name directly translates as "Tibetan Cypress". In comparison, the Chinese name for C. gigantea is 巨柏, which directly translates as "Giant Cypress". The sources that cite as "Tibetan Cypress" may possibly be a result of using either machine translation or just translators unfamiliar with such subjects. So I'm inclined to believe that C. torulosa was actually the species that the articles intended to report.

However, I do find it somewhat convincing that the initial reporting may have misidentified the species, based on the range information and ease of confusion between C. gigantea with C. torulosa, and the consultation with conifer expert that you've mentioned. Maybe a scientific report/paper may be released by the team (given it's led by academic researchers) in the future that may shed more clarity. Zhoutianxun (talk) 01:14, 31 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]