There is an evergreen tree at my work that appears to me to be very out of place for this area. I personally don’t like it there, but some find the tree appealing. No one at work knows where it came from or what it is (that is, until now). When I exhausted all my sources in research to no avail, I concluded that this could be a tree I may never be able to identify. Finding three more trees in locations near Lithia Springs, Hiram, and Villa Rica added to my frustration. One day, before going to a Douglas County Master Gardener plant sale, I placed a cone from the tree in my shirt pocket. There, I met a certified arborist and showed him the cone from my pocket. With just a glance, he said “Oh, where did you get that Cunninghamia lanceolata, that 
most call China-fir?” I was stunned that he could so readily recognize the cone.
Most often called China fir, China-fir, and Chinese fir, and also called Chinese cedar, the Cunninghamia lanceolata is in fact a cypress. The hyphenated name is perhaps most proper, because the hyphen indicates it is not a fir. The Eastern redcedar’s name is compounded without a space to indicate it is not a cedar, in similar fashion. The Chinese have a true cedar that is also called Chinese cedar, so use of this name for the China-fir can be confusing. The tree is very important in its native China, accounting for 20-30% of its total timber production. The China-fir is the country’s most important single timber crop.
The china-fir stands out in the landscape it is in, and it requires a large setting such as a park that can accommodate its growth. This is not a good tree for a yard. It grows best in full sunlight and moist but well-drained soil. Heights may average 30 to 75 feet. The tree grows straight, and often in clusters, having a pyramidal form. From its top to the ground there are sprays of evergreen, flat branches that are in whorls of 5 to 6 together, spreading and pendulous at the ends. The needles are shiny dark green to blue green. They taper to a sharp point on the end, are 1 to 3 inches long, and are thick, stiff and tough. Densely and spirally arranged on the twig, they follow the twig about 1/8 inches and then twist out to give the 
appearance of being two-ranked. There are two broad, white stomal bands below, and sometimes also above. The branches of green needles remain alive for up to 5 years. When they die, they are slow to fall from the tree and this gives the tree a scruffy appearance. The dead material on the ground is slow to break down, because it naturally repels pests, fungus and rot. Not only are nutrients slow to break down, but chemicals released from the material are allelopathic. These chemicals impair the growth of undergrowth and even the growth of new China-fir trees that replace harvested trees.
China-fir bark is gray-brown, fissured, and irregularly scaly. It peels, revealing reddish 
brown inner bark. Root suckers produce tree clusters around the main trunk. When the tree is grown and harvested commercially, it is common to reproduce the tree by allowing a sucker to grow from the stump in a process called coppicing. Root suckers may be removed and planted.
Yet another way the tree reproduces is from seeds that are produced in cones. Cones may be solitary or several together, and develop at the ends of twigs or along twigs. Seed cones are more often lower in the crown than male cones, and occasionally male cones develop around the base of seed cones. Female cones are ovid or rounded, 
and measure 1 ½ to 2 inches long by 1 ¼ to 1 ½ inches wide. Cone scales are thin with a serrate margin, and the apex elongates into a spine. The flowers that produce the cones are inconspicuous. Female flowers form in the autumn, yellow-green and enclosed in leafy scales that open for pollination in spring. After pollination from male flowers, which are yellow-brown, these scales close tightly and young cones are formed 10 days later. Thin seeds with wings grow between the scales, and at maturity they measure ¼ inch long. After seeds ripen in the fall and seeds are dispersed by the wind, the empty cones persist on the tree for a year or more.
The China-fir has many uses in China. It is used for landscaping large areas such as parks, temples, and on roadsides. As timber, it is light, fragrant, and with grain and texture similar to the Douglas fir. It is exceptionally resistant to decay and pests, but when wet continuously the wood rots easily. The tree has fast growth, with mature wood superior in quality to juvenile wood. The wood is used for light structural building, decking, fencing, weatherboarding, paneling, flooring, poles, boats, furniture and cabinets, coffins, boxes and crates, particleboard, sulphate pulps, charcoal, and more. The tree has had medicinal uses. A decoction of the wood is used as a bath for smelly feet, and to treat chronic ulcers. A decoction of the cone is used to treat coughs. Essential oil from the tree is used to treat bruises, pain, rheumatism, and wounds. Essential oil from branches is used in perfumes. 
Ash of the bark is used to treat burns and wounds. Bark is a source of tannins. The china-fir can be a very useful tree.
Though most authorities consider the China-fir to be a non-invasive tree, it insures proliferation by seed, by root suckers, and by elimination of competition by smothering the ground with dead material that is slow to decompose, and releasing allelopathic chemicals to eliminate competition. It does not spread like wildfire but slowly, deliberately, surely. It is listed as an invasive species by invasive.org and invasiveplantatlas.org. The main China-fir on the Inner Harbour campus, which is located by the lower parking lot, is a cluster of large trees and many small trees scattered about the tree’s edge. About 30 yards from this tree, there is a similar cluster of these trees. About 120 yards from these two clusters of trees is another cluster that is just getting started. All the China-fir trees I have seen in locations outside Inner Harbour have been in clusters, and spreading. From my observations, this is a species that is best used with caution, or avoided.
I live in Newnan, Georgia and I have a China-fir in my front yard. It’s a nice big tree and I like the pretty reddish brown bark. It takes center stage on that side of the house. What I don’t like are the branches covered in razor sharp leaves that drop onto the ground. They are a real pain to clean up. For a long time my husband thought it was a Monkey Puzzle tree, but we’ve since determined it’s a China-fir, we think. It is certainly a strong tree. When an EF-4 tornado touched down near my home in March of 2021 the China-fir was the only tree left standing on our property. Now we hope to plant a few of the fast growing root suckers in other parts of the yard. And since we still have a teenage son at home knowing that a decoction for smelly feet can be made out of the wood we may plant more than a few more! 😉