Pilgerodendron

Pilgerodendron is a monotypic genus of conifer in the cypress family, Cupressaceae, whose sole species, Pilgerodendron uviferum, is endemic to the Valdivian temperate rain forests and Magellanic subpolar forests of southern Chile and southwestern Argentina. It reaches 54 degrees south in Tierra del Fuego, which makes it the southernmost conifer in the world. The tree is dioecious, slow-growing and narrowly conical, from 2 to 20 metres tall, with scale-like leaves in opposite pairs that give the shoots a square cross-section. It grows in evergreen coastal lowland forest alongside Nothofagus betuloides and Drimys winteri, and in open stands in sheltered bogs inland. Its yellow-reddish, decay-resistant wood was long prized as timber, used by Chono and Kawesqar peoples for oars, boats and houses and later for railway sleepers and construction, and over-exploitation has made it much scarcer. It is listed under CITES Appendix I and considered vulnerable by the IUCN. Many botanists place it in Libocedrus.