Named after the island where the only species is found.
An evergreen, conical tree growing naturally to 50 m or more tall in nature but much smaller in cultivation. Leaves densely crowded on the stem, thick, leathery, prickly, with an incurved point, ridged above and below, pressed to the branchlet for slightly less than half their length. Female cones c. 1 cm long with numerous overlapping, pointed scales (not seen in Australian cultivated specimens). Seeds two on each fertile scale, broadly winged.
The foliage appears to be fixed almost permanently in a juvenile phase as it is only on trees several centuries old that the mature scale-like leaves develop.
1 species from Taiwan, China (Yunnan) and N Burma (sometimes recognised as up to 3 species).
Seed or cuttings.
Hardly differing vegetatively from Cryptomeria. However, Taiwania has male cones in dense clusters and elongated female cones with rounded scales, the two seeds of each fertile scale being distinctly winged. Cryptomeria has solitary, axillary male cones and spherical female cones with toothed scales bearing 3 seeds which have only rudimentary wings.
Hayata (1906).
Source: (1995). Taxodiaceae. In: . Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 1, Ferns, conifers & their allies. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.