# The Trees of Great Britain & Ireland/Volume 1/Taxodium

The Trees of Great Britain & Ireland was a multi-volume work, privately published between 1906 and 1913. The first volume was published 1906. The plates of this volume were published separately
TAXODIUM
    Taxodium, Richard, Ann. Mus. Par. xvi. 298 (1810); Bentham et Hooker, Gen. Pl. iii. 429 (1880); Masters, Jour. Linn. Soc. (Bot.) xxx. 24 (1893).
    Schubertia, Mirbel, Nouv. Bull. Soc. Philom. iii. 123 (1812).
    Glyptostrobus, Endlicher, Syn. Conif. 30 (1847).
Deciduous or subevergreen trees, several extinct species and a series of living forms, which have been variously considered to constitute one, two, or three species, belonging to the tribe Taxodinese of the order Coniferæ.
Branchlets of two kinds, those at the apex of the shoot persistent, and bearing axillary buds, those lower down on the shoot deciduous and without buds. Buds of two kinds: those near the apex of the shoot, two in number, sub-terminal, globose, composed of imbricated, ovate, acute, keeled scales; these buds continue the growth of the persistent shoot. The lateral buds, situated lower on the shoot, are minute globose swellings, enclosed in two transverse, broadly oval, concave, membranous scales, which do not meet. These buds produce the deciduous branchlets, and are developed both on older and current year's shoots, in the latter case arising in the axils of primary leaves.
Leaves inserted spirally on the branchlets; on the persistent shoots, spreading more or less radially; on the deciduous shoots, in the usual forms of the species, thrown by a twisting of their bases into two lateral ranks, thus assuming a pseudodistichous arrangement; linear, acute, channelled along the median line above, keeled and bearing stomata below. In var. imbricaria the leaves are not pseudo-distichously arranged, but are appressed around the twig and spreading at their free apex; they are narrow, long-pointed, concave above.
Flowers monœcious. Male flowers in panicles, 3 to 5 inches long, arising at the end of the preceding year's shoot. Each flower is minute, sub-sessile, and consists of a stalk surrounded at its base by ovate scales, and bearing 6 to 8 distichously opposite stamens. Female flowers, scattered near the ends of branchlets of the preceding year, solitary, globular, consisting of numerous imbricated pointed bracts, adnate below to the thickened fleshy scales, each of which bears two ovules.
Fruit, a globular or ellipsoidal, short-stalked, woody cone, an inch or more in diameter, ripening in the first year, composed of thick coriaceous peltate scales, the stipes of which are slender and spring off at right angles from the axis of the cone; the discs, rhomboidal in shape, show a triangular scar at the base, above which they are irregularly crenulate and rugose. The bract having almost entirely coalesced ​with the scale, its apex appears on the upper part of the scar as a minute reflexed point. Some of the scales are sterile; the others bear each two erect unequally three-angled seeds.
Taxodium is readily distinguishable in winter from other deciduous trees by the peculiar buds and branchlet scars which mark the twigs. The latter are very slender, terete, glabrous, and brown in colour, and bear at their apex the two pseudo-terminal buds described above, one of which, however, is often aborted in trees growing in England. Scattered over the twigs appear the branchlet scars and the lateral buds. The former are small circular depressions, surrounded by a slightly raised rim, and having a single dot or a minute protuberance in their centre. The lateral buds, also previously described, are smaller than the branchlet scars, and on twigs of one year arise just above the minute scars left by the primary leaves, in which a single dot may be made out with difficulty. Single-dotted leaf-scars occur in Larix and Pseudolarix; but in these genera branchlet scars are absent, and the twigs show spurs or short shoots, which are wanting in Taxodium.
The genus Taxodium was once common and widely distributed over the Holarctic region. During Miocene and Pliocene times it was spread over the interior of North America, throughout Europe, and in north-eastern Siberia. In the present day it is restricted to the Southern United States and Mexico.
The genus can only be confounded with Glyptostrobus, now represented by one living species, G. heterophyllus, Endlicher, a native of the province of Canton, in Southern China, where it occurs as a small tree along the banks of rivers and streams. Like Taxodium, it has deciduous foliage and branchlets. The leaves assume two forms—on ordinary branchlets long and linear and arranged in three rows, on fruiting branchlets closely imbricated, scale-like, concave internally and carinate externally. The cone, pyriform in shape, is composed of scales, which are not peltate, but elongated and arising from its base. The bract coalesces with the scale below; but above the middle is free and recurved, leaving bare the 5 to 7 lobed summit of the scale. The seeds, oblong or obovate, often short-spurred at the base, are narrowly winged on the sides and prolonged at the base into a flat, lancet-shaped wing. Glyptostrobus heterophyllus is not hardy at Kew, where specimens may be seen in the temperate house. A plant of it is reported to be growing in the open air at Castlewellan.
TAXODIUM DISTICHUM, Deciduous Cypress
    Taxodium distichum, Richard, Ann. Mus. Par. xvi. 298 (1810); Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iv. 2481 (1838); Sargent, Silva N. America, x. 151, t. 537 (1896); Kent, in Veitch's Man. Coniferæ, 281 (1900).
    Cupressus disticha, Linnæus, Sp. Pl. 1003 (1753).
    Schubertia disticha, Mirbel, Mém. Mus. Par. xiii. 75 (1825).
Three well-marked forms of Taxodium occur in the wild state, which differ in certain characters, such as the form of the foliage, its partial persistence or complete deciduousness, and the time of flowering; and in the present state of our knowledge these may be considered as constituting one species, the peculiarities mentioned appearing to depend on conditions of soil and climate, and to be by no means constant.
1. Var. typica. A tall tree, with a gradually tapering stem, which has an enlarged base, usually hollow internally and buttressed externally. When young it is strictly pyramidal in form; but in older trees the crown becomes wide and flattened, often 100 feet across, according to Sargent. The bark is dull reddish brown, 1 to 2 inches thick, fissured and separating into long fibrous scales. The leaves in this form are arranged pseudo-distichously on horizontally spreading branchlets, and are linear in shape (see generic description). This form is the one which occurs generally in the alluvial swamps of the southeastern United States.
2. Var. imbricaria.
       Taxodium distichum, var. imbricaria, Sargent, l.c. 152.
       Taxodium distichum pendulum, Carrière, Conif. 182 (1867).
       Taxodium imbricarium, Harper, Bull. Torrey Bot. Club, xxix. 383 (1902), and xxxii. 105 (1905).
       Taxodium sinense, Gordon, Pinetum, 309 (1858).
       Cupressus disticha, β imbricaria, Nuttall, Gen. ii. 224 (1818).
       Glyptostrobus pendulus, Endlicher, Syn. Conif. 71 (1847); Hooker fil., Bot. Mag. t. 5603 (1886).
A tree, generally smaller in size than the type, with branchlets normally erect, but occasionally somewhat spreading and very rarely pendulous. Leaves appressed on the branchlets and acicular-acuminate (see generic description).
According to Mohr, this is the "upland Cypress" which occurs on the shallow ponds of the pine-barrens and in semi-swampy woods on poor sandy soil. He considers it to be greatly inferior to the typical cypress of the alluvial swamps in regard to the size and quality of the wood; and states that in the earlier stages of its growth and on vigorous adventitious shoots it produces leaves of the ordinary form. It passes readily, according to his observations, into the type, where the soil conditions are favourable. He considers the peculiarity of the foliage to be an adaptation to check excessive transpiration during the time of drought when the sandy soil is laid bare to the sun and the supply of water diminishes.
​Harper considers this variety to be a distinct species, and in support of this opinion alleges that certain differences which he has observed in the two forms are constant. The bark in var. imbricaria, both in cultivated and wild specimens, is considerably thicker and more coarsely ridged than in the typical form. The enlargement of the base of the trunk is abrupt in the former, conical in the latter. Knees are formed more abundantly in trees of the type, and are usually slender and acute, sometimes reaching a height of 6 feet. In var. imbricaria the knees are short and rounded, often almost hemispherical in shape. The type is a lover of limestone, the variety just the opposite. The distribution of the two forms is different, dependent upon the geological nature of the soil, var. imbricaria always growing on the Lafayette formation, which is a deposit of sandy clay, while the type always occurs on other formations. Harper admits the occurrence of intermediate forms, but states that they are rare. He has records of 300 to 400 stations in Georgia for var. imbricaria, at each of which there may be from ten to several thousand trees, while he has only seen intermediate forms about twenty times, and never more than 100 trees at one station. In the intermediate forms branchlets with distichous leaves occur on young shoots. Harper has seen in Georgia specimens of var. imbricaria as large as the ordinary form; but it is generally admitted to be a smaller tree. The two forms often grow close together, but in different situations. On the Savilla river in Camden County, Georgia, he noticed the type growing along the water's edge below the Lafayette formation, while a hundred yards or so away var. imbricaria was flourishing in moist pine-barrens.
Var. imbricaria is possibly a juvenile form, analogous to Cryptomeria elegans. The generally smaller size of the trees and the various differences noted by Harper are probably the result of poor soil, and do not, in my opinion, entitle this form to rank as a distinct species.
This variety was early introduced into England, as it was in cultivation, according to Aiton, at Kew in 1789. The original tree at Kew, now dead, was living in 1886, when it was described by Sir Joseph Hooker as 40 feet in height and of remarkable habit, on account of its slender twisted stem with decurved branches and pectinately-disposed branchlets. A small tree, 20 feet in height, is now growing in Kew Gardens.
A tree of the Mexican kind was reported to be growing at Penrhyn Castle, North Wales; but Elwes saw it in 1906, and confirms the opinion I had formed from specimens sent by Mr. Richards, that it is var. imbricaria. It is 44 feet high and 4 in girth, and comes into leaf later than the ordinary form growing near it.
At Pencarrow, Cornwall, there is a fine specimen, which was planted about 1841 by Sir W. Molesworth. It had attained in 1899 a height of over 30 feet, with a girth of stem of 2 feet 9½ inches at 5 feet from the ground.
​As ordinarily seen in cultivation it is a small tree of slow growth, and is quite distinct from the Chinese Glyptostrobus heterophyllus, with which it has been occasionally confused.
3. Var. mucronatum.
       Taxodium mucronatum, Tenore, Ann. Sc. Nat. sér. 3, xix. 355 (1853).
       Taxodium mucronulatum, Sargent, Silva N. Am. x. 150, note 2 (1896).
       Taxodium Montezumæ, Decaisne, Bull. Soc. Bot. de France, i. 71 (1854).
       Taxodium mexicanum, Carrière, Traité Conif. 147 (1855).
       Taxodium distichum mexicanum, Gordon, Pinetum, 307 (1858).
This differs from the type in the foliage being more persistent, generally lasting two years on the tree, and in the time of flowering, which is in autumn. The panicles of male flowers are generally more elongated than those of the United States tree. The leaves are usually shorter, lighter green in colour, and blunter at the apex.
These differences scarcely entitle this form, which occurs in Mexico, to separate specific rank. Specimens of the type, occurring at high elevations (1600 to 2000 feet) in Texas, approach it in character of the foliage; and in some Florida specimens the panicles of flowers are as large as any occurring on Mexican trees. The cones vary greatly in size and form in trees of Taxodium, occurring both in Mexico and the United States. Sargent, who has seen the tree in Mexico, was unable to distinguish it, by either foliage or habit, from the type.
It is evidently a geographical form in which certain differences of foliage have been brought about by climatic influence. One is led by a study of the specimens from many different regions to see in Taxodium a single species very variable in the wild state, rather than a number of distinct species.
Taxodium does not produce knees, so far as we can learn, in Mexico, where trees generally stand upon dry ground. According to Seeman, the tree is known in Mexico as Sabino, and is diffused over the whole tableland of that country. There are reported to be extensive forests of it at altitudes varying from 4500 to 7500 feet. Concerning, however, the character and distribution of these forests our information is very scanty. Much more is known about the remarkable isolated examples of very old and enormous trees, which have always attracted the attention of travellers in Mexico. The most noted of these is the tree of Santa Maria del Tula, about eighteen miles south-east of the city of Oaxaca, which was measured by Baron Thielmann in 1886, when its height was between 160 and 170 feet. Its ​actual girth at 5 feet from the ground, following all sinuosities, was 146 feet, the longest diameter being 42 feet. The cypress of Montezuma, which is the largest of the great trees in the gardens of Chapultepec, near Mexico, is about 48 feet in girth, according to Elwes, who saw it in 1888. Its height is about 170 feet.
Taxodium mucronatum was first described from a specimen growing in the Botanic Garden at Naples, said to have been introduced into Europe in 1838. Elwes saw this tree in April 1903, when the old leaves were partly persistent. A tree at Palermo has borne fruit. There are specimens at Kew labelled "Hort. Cusinati," collected by J. Ball, which bear very large cones, 1½ inches long by an inch in breadth.
Two seedlings were raised by Elwes from seeds brought by Mr. Marlborough Pryor from Oaxaca in 1904, one of which is to be planted out in a sheltered dell at Tregothnan in Cornwall, the other in the Temperate House at Kew. The larger of these, which grew slowly in a greenhouse through the winter of 1904–5, was about 18 inches high at one year old.
The typical form is the one commonly cultivated in England. In summer the foliage is decidedly ornamental, being of a delicate green colour. In autumn the leaves, before they fall, become reddish brown in colour.
Sub-varieties.—About a dozen sub-varieties are enumerated by Beissner, pyramidal, pendulous, fastigiate, dwarf forms, etc. The tree is very variable in habit.
Taxodium distichum rarely produces flowers or fruit in England. It first bore fruit about the year 1752. A tree at Ryton-on-Dunsmore, which was forty years old, produced flowers, apparently all males and in great abundance, in 1868. Fruiting specimens were sent to Dr. Masters from Menabilly in Cornwall in 1893; the cones were smaller than native-grown ones. One of these was proliferous, the cone terminating in a branch bearing leaves and male flowers; and from the sides of the cone leaf-bearing branches also emerged, which on examination proved to form no part of either bract or scale, but were separate outgrowths from the axis of the cone. On a tree at Gwydyr Castle, North Wales, fruit is borne about every third year, but Mr. Macintyre informed me that it never was fully matured, and no seedlings were ever raised. According to Webster, this tree was profusely covered with cones in 1884, but had none when Elwes saw it in 1906. Bunbury states that at Abergwynant, in Wales, a tree produced oval cones.
Gay says that though often cultivated in wet places in several old parks at Paris, he has only seen fruit at the Trianon on a tree growing in very dry ground.
​Seedling.—There are 5 or 6 cotyledons, borne in a whorl at the summit of a purplish brown caulicle, about 2 inches long, ending in a tiny curved rootlet, which subsequently develops a few lateral fibres. The cotyledons are linear, 1 to 1¼ inch long, $^1$⁄$_{10}$ inch broad, sessile on a broad base, gradually diminishing to an acute apex, upper surface dark green, bearing stomata in lines with a raised midrib; lower surface pale green and uniform. On the stem above the cotyledons are borne about 3 false whorls of leaves, ½ inch long, those below resembling the cotyledons, but bearing stomata on both surfaces; those above having decurrent bases. In the axils of the uppermost leaves lateral branchlets are given off, bearing needles in two rows and forming short shoots, which fall off in autumn.
The preceding description is taken from seedlings raised at Colesborne from cones gathered by Elwes in September 1904 at Mt. Carmel, Illinois.(A.H.)
Distribution
This remarkable tree occurs in North America from southern Delaware, where, according to Sargent, it formerly attained almost its largest size, all along the coast region as far as the Devil's River in Texas, and up the Mississippi valley as far as southern Illinois and south-western Indiana. In these regions it inhabits river bottoms usually submerged during several months, and swampy places. On the Edwards Plateau of Texas, several hundred miles west of the great cypress swamps of eastern Texas, it occurs at 1000 to 1750 feet above sea-level, and attains an enormous size at the edges of the deeper holes near the heads of the permanent water of the Pedernales and other streams. This highland form in certain respects resembles the Mexican variety. In some parts of Louisiana, Texas, and the Gulf States, it occurs as pure forest, and in places so continuously flooded that the seed cannot germinate, I have passed on the railway, built on trestles for miles, through cypress swamps where the soil was submerged to a depth of 5 or 6 feet, and where few other trees could live. In drier places, such as the Wabash valley in southern Indiana, near Mount Carmel, where the cypress is evidently not so happy, it was associated with ash, liquidambar, and maple. In this locality also, although the trees were covered with fruit, I could find no seedlings; and as the accessible trees are in most places being rapidly cut for their timber, they seem likely to become scarcer unless protected. As far as I know it does not grow from the stool or from suckers.
In Arkansas and Missouri there are swamps in which both Taxodium and Nyssa uniflora grow together, the latter with a peculiar dome-shaped base, ​analogous to the cone-shaped base of the former; and from Coulter's observations it would appear that seedlings of Taxodium are also rare here, and that it is being beaten in the struggle by the Nyssa, the seedlings of which are very abundant.
A disease due to a fungus has attacked many of the trees in the Mississippi valley; the heartwood is found when the trees are cut down to be full of holes ¼ to ¾ inch in diameter.
Taxodium is one of the most striking and characteristic trees in the Gulf States, having its branches often covered with Tillandsia usneoides, the "Spanish moss" of the inhabitants, the long grey masses of which wave in the wind and give it a strange appearance. The trunk takes many curious forms, which seem to be induced by the nature of the soil and the depth of the water, sometimes branching low and surrounded by buttresses, sometimes growing straight up to a considerable height (Plates 52–53). From the stout wide-spreading roots arise woody cylindrical projections, sometimes above a foot in diameter and 5 to 7 feet high, which are called "cypress knees." The growth and functions of these have been the source of much discussion. Berkeley supposed that they serve to aerate the submerged roots; others have thought that they help to anchor the roots in soft muddy soil. As the knees, however, occur to some extent even on ground which is never flooded, as in the trees at Syon, these suppositions, though highly probable, must remain somewhat doubtful.
The knees are hollow inside, and smooth externally, being covered with a reddish, soft, and spongy bark. They never show any sign of vegetation, and will not put forth shoots, even if wounded and covered with earth.
Cultivation
In England the Taxodium grows much better than might be expected considering how much colder and shorter are our summers than those of its native country. It was introduced by John Tradescant about 1640, and described by Parkinson as Cupressus americana.
For some unexplained reason it has lost the popularity it once enjoyed, and is now seldom planted, though it grows well in the southern and western counties. I have raised it from American seed, which, however, must be soaked in warm water for some time, and placed in a warm house to get good results. It grows rapidly at first, but as the young wood is not ripened, and no terminal bud formed (which ​Sargent says is also the case in America), the young plant must be kept under glass for the first two or three winters in order to develop a straight leader.
Many of the old trees which are to be found in England have evidently suffered from spring and autumn frosts when young, and have become stunted in consequence, but when the wood is ripe the tree will stand as much as 30° to 40° of frost, and I have seen it existing in the open air as far north as Copenhagen.
It should be planted in deep, moist loam, and the most sheltered situation that can be found, and may then be expected in the south and south-west to grow into a very fine and ornamental tree.
Remarkable Trees
The trees at Syon have been frequently described and figured. They are planted in damp soil by the side of a sheet of water, and one of them has produced knees of 1 to 2 feet high. This tree, which is shown in Plate 54, measured, in 1903, 90 feet by 12, but there is a much taller one on the other side of the water, which, when we saw it last in 1905, was no feet high, and is the tallest we know of in Europe. Another in the Duke's walk is 85 feet by 10 feet 3 inches.
But those at Whitton, near Hounslow, are even more remarkable, and are believed to have been planted by the Duke of Argyll between 1720 and 1762. They grow on gravelly soil, which, though apparently dry, is probably underlaid by damp alluvium. There are five trees standing in a group, of which the largest, carefully measured by us both in 1905, was 98 to 100 feet high by 13 feet 6 inches in girth; the others are all large, healthy, and growing trees (Plate 55).
At Pain's Hill, Surrey, there are two good trees: one, measured by Henry in 1904, is 90 feet by 10 feet 9 inches, the other is 80 feet by 8 feet 6 inches.
At Parkside Gardens, Wimbledon, a tree is growing which is remarkably like the Ginkgo at Kew in habit. The bole at 7 feet divides into two stems, which give off seven or eight ascending branches. In 1904, measured by Henry, it was 65 feet by 11 feet 2 inches.
At Gothic Lodge, Wimbledon, the residence of Sir William Preece, there is a tree with a fine bole of 20 feet, dividing into several upright stems. In 1904, measured by Henry, it was 90 feet by 11 feet. This is perhaps the tree mentioned by Miller, who says that a "tree at Wimbledon in the garden of Sir A. Janssen, Bart., bore cones for some years past and seeds which have been as good as those brought from America."
At White Knights, Reading, there are several trees, but none of large size, the biggest measuring, in 1904, 67 feet by 7 feet 10 inches. They are remarkable, however, for variety of habit. One is a tall, narrow tree with upright branches, almost fastigiate. In another tree the stem is twisted, as often occurs in the chestnut, and most of the branches are twisted also in the direction against the sun. Loudon mentions these as young trees of peculiar habits.
​At Barton, Suffolk, there are three trees, which measured in 1903, (a'Italic text') in the Arboretum, 50 feet by 5 feet 5 inches, dying; (b) a smaller tree beside it, in a worse condition; (c) on the lawn, 56 feet by 4 feet 3 inches. The latter tree was planted in 1826, the other two in 1831. It is evident that the dry though deep soil at Barton is not favourable to the growth of this species.
At Frogmore, Windsor, there are two specimens very different in habit. One, a clean-stemmed tree, growing near water, but without knees, is 80 feet by 8 feet 6 inches. The other, not so large, has a weeping habit, and is branched to the ground.
At Strathfieldsaye there is a tree, mentioned by Loudon as being 46 feet in height by 3 feet 4 inches in diameter, which I found in 1903 to be 63 feet high by 9 feet in girth. It is growing in stiff clay soil and has no knees; the stem is deeply furrowed.
At Dropmore there is a tree beside a pond, planted in 1843, and now measuring 60 feet by 5 feet 9 inches.
At South Lodge, Enfield, a tree is growing near water, with small knees, which, measured by Henry in 1904, was 77 feet by 11 feet 10 inches.
At Combe Abbey, Warwickshire, Mr. W. Miller reports that a tree, mentioned by Loudon as 47 feet by 2 feet 3 inches in 1843, had attained, in 1887, 75 feet by 11 feet 6 inches at 3 feet from the ground.
At Longford Castle, Salisbury, there are two trees, growing within a few yards of the river Avon. One, very tall, has a straight trunk free from branches for about 30 feet, and a girth of 8 feet 10 inches at 4 feet from the ground. The other is 6 feet in girth, and branches at 7 feet up.
At Brockett's Park, near Hatfield, the residence of Lord Mountstephen, there are many trees planted along a walk on the banks of the Lee, and forming an irregular line in which the trees vary very much in size. In the sheltered part of the valley, where the soil and situation are very favourable, they average 70 to 80 feet high, the best I measured being 80 feet by 10 feet and 86 feet by 9 feet. But lower down the stream, where the valley is more exposed to the wind, they are stunted, and not more than half the height of those above. There are knees on some of the trees overgrown with moss and meadowsweet, but not so large as those at Syon.
At Upper Nutwell, near Exeter, there is a tree which Mr. G.H. Hodgkinson informed me in June 1904 was 84 feet high by 11 feet 9 inches in girth.
Large trees have been reported at many other places, especially in the south of England, viz.:—
Connington Castle, Huntingdonshire, a tree 70 feet by 7 feet in 1877; Watford, Herts, 85 feet by 14 feet in 1884; Stanwell, Surrey, a tree 13 feet in girth in 1904; Embley, near Romsey, Hampshire, a tree 8½ feet in girth in 1872, standing on the top of a hill.
​I have seen no trees in Scotland of any size, and Henry has heard of none in Ireland, but there is one in the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens 31 feet by 3 feet in 1905.
Timber
According to Sargent the timber is light and soft, close, straight grained, not strong, easily worked, and very durable in contact with the soil. It is largely used for building, most of the houses in Louisiana and the Gulf States being built from it, and large quantities are also now exported to the North, where it is found a most valuable wood for doors, sashes, balustrades, and greenhouses.
The Stearns Lumber Company of Boston, U.S.A., are making a speciality of it, and from a pamphlet published by this firm I take the following particulars:—
The timber varies considerably in different localities, and they consider, after long experience, that the so-called Gulf Cypress, grown in Florida, is better than the Louisiana Red Cypress, or that from the Atlantic coast of Georgia. Farther north it is apt to be more shaky and of coarser grain; and it is claimed that the seasoning is better done in the South than in the Northern States, from one to five years being required to do this properly, according to the dimensions of the timber, and that the longer in reason that it is kept in the pile before using the better.
It is said to be more durable, and to shrink and swell less than spruce or pine, to take paint well, and, as it contains no pitch, to resist fire longer than other coniferous woods.
It is quoted from the Richmond Despatch that a house, built by Michael Braun in 1776, and still owned and occupied by his descendants, was covered with cypress shingles, which were only removed in 1880.
Such shingles are now made by machinery at a very low price, and would be well worth trying for roofing houses in England, as they are very light in weight and inexpensive, and though I have no evidence that they are better than shingles made from English oak, their much greater size makes them easier to lay, and they can be cut to fancy patterns, which makes them very ornamental for roofing.
This wood is also highly recommended for doors, sashes, tanks, and other purposes where a great power of enduring damp is required.
It occasionally produces very ornamental wood, which is mottled and grained with red and brown, and some doors made of this wood, two of which I now possess, are extremely handsome.
Whether the wood grown in England will prove equally good I cannot say, as large trees are so seldom cut down in England that I have been unable to try it, but would certainly advise anyone who may have the opportunity to do so. (H.J.E.)
* ↑ Glyptostrobus heterophyllus, Endlicher, Syn. Conif. 70 (1847); Masters, Jour. Bot. 1900, p. 37, and Gard. Chron. xxvi. 489 (1899); Thuya pensilis, Staunton, Embassy to China, ii. 436 (1798); Lambert, Pinus, ed. 2, ii. 115, f. 51.
* ↑ Contrib. U.S. Nat. Herbarium, vi, 117 and 325 (1901).
* ↑ Hortus Kewensis, iii. 372. Described as "Cupressus disticha, var. nutans; foliis remotioribus subsparsis; long-leaved deciduous cypress." This varietal name was kept up by Loudon, loc. cit. 2481, who considered it to be identical with the Taxodium sinense of cultivators of his time.
* ↑ Bot. Mag. t. 5603 (1886), where it is described as Glyplostrobus pendulus, Endlicher.
* ↑ A.D. Webster, Hardy Coniferous Trees, 115 (1896). This tree is described in Garden, 1887, xxxi. 480.
* ↑ Figured in Gard. Chron. 1899, xxvi. 489, fig. 161.
* ↑ Specimens collected by Hillier in Keir County, Texas, are in the Kew Herbarium.
* ↑ Botany of Voyage of H.M.S. "Herald" (1852-1857), p. 335.
* ↑ Garden and Forest, 1897, p. 123; figured on p. 125. The tree is also depicted in Gard. Chron. 1892, xii. 646, fig. 100. According to a correspondent, the girth was 139 feet in 1886; 25 years previously it had been 136½ feet. Various and conflicting measurements of this tree, taken by Exter, Baron von Karwinski, and Galeotti, in the early part of the nineteenth century, are given by Zuccarini in Ray Society, Reports on Botany (1846), p. 19. The latest measurements of this tree I know of are on a very fine photograph given me by the late Hon. Charles Ellis, as follows:— Taxodium distichum at Mitla, near Oaxaca.—Reported dimensions— Girth at 4 feet from ground, 132 feet. Girth„ at„ 6 feet„ from„ ground,„ 154 feet.„ Girth„ higher up fro„ground,„ 198 feet.„ Height, 100 to 120 feet. (H.J.E.)
* ↑ Garden and Forest, 1890, p. 150, fig. 28.
* ↑ Carriere, Traité Conif. 147 (1855).
* ↑ Nadelholzkunde, 152 (1891).
* ↑ Gard. Chron. 1868, p. 1016.
* ↑ Ibid. 1893, xiv. 659, fig. 105, showing fruiting branch, scales, and seeds. In the same journal, 1886, xxvi. 148, fig. 28, are represented abnormal flowers of this species, from a tree growing in England; also, in Gard. Chron. 1888, iii. 565, fig. 77, is depicted a remarkable gnaur on a Taxodium.
* ↑ Woods and Forests, 1885, p. 25.
* ↑ Arboretum Notes, 161.
* ↑ Note in Kew Herbarium.
* ↑ Ann. Report U.S. Geol. Survey, xviii. 210, 211 (1898). There are specimens from this locality at Kew.
* ↑ R. Ridgway describes this locality as being in 1873 heavily timbered with cypress over an area of about 20,000 acres, in which the best trees had even then been cut and floated out into the river. The largest stump he measured was 38 feet in girth at the ground and 22 feet at 8 feet high. The largest standing tree measured was 27 feet in girth above the swollen base, and the tallest 146 and 147 feet high. Their average height, however, was not above 100 feet, and even the finest of them would not compare for symmetry and length with the sweet gums (liquidambar) and ashes (Fraxinus americana) with which they were associated.—Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. 1882, p. 87. An excellent photograph taken here is published in Garden and Forest, iii. p. 7, and shows the knees remarkably well.
* ↑ Coulter, Missouri Bot. Garden Report, 1903, p. 58.
* ↑ Coulter, Missouri Bot. Garden Report, 1899, p. 23.
* ↑ For the negatives of the first of these photographs I am indebted to Miss E. Cummings of Brookline, Mass., a lady who is second to none in her love of and knowledge of trees. The second, which was sent by Mr. W. Ashe, represents a typical cypress swamp on the Roanoak river, North Carolina, which has never been cut for timber.
* ↑ Sargent, loc. cit. 152, note 1; Coulter, loc. cit. The best review I know of the literature on this subject is in a letter by R.H. Lambom in Garden and Forest, iii. p. 21, which should be consulted by those interested, and which is illustrated by a very curious photograph, taken at Lake Monroe in Central Florida, of the denuded roots of the tree, showing that in some cases, at least, the anchor theory is proved.
* ↑ Gard. Chron. 1857, p. 549.
* ↑ Parkinson, Theatr. 1477, fig. In Catalogue of Trees, London, 1730, p. 25, it is stated that the first tree, raised in Tradescant's garden near Lambeth, was then still living, being 40 feet high by 2 fathoms in girth.
* ↑ This is probably the tree, reported in Woods and Forests, February 4, 1885, to be 83 feet in height by 10 feet in girth at 3 feet above the ground.
* ↑ Miller, Gard. Dict., ed. 8, sub Cupressus disticha (1768).
* ↑ Bunbury, Arboretum Notes, 161.
* ↑ Gard. Chron. 1905, xxxvii. 12.
* ↑ Garden, 1890, xxxvii. 538.
* ↑ Ibid. 1877, xii. 405.
* ↑ Woods and Forests, 1884, p. 546.
* ↑ Reported by Sir Hugh Beevor.
* ↑ Bunbury, Arboretum Notes, 161.