330 DR. MAXWELL T. MASTERS—A GENERAL 
forms are very common, even on the same tree; and individual 
plants are so very variable in habit and in fructification that it 
seems better to assume that there is but one species. 
If so, it would appear from analogy with other fastigiate forms, 
e.g. in the oak, that the fastigiation is a variation from the 
normal spreading type. Planters have preferred the pyramidal 
form for their purpose, and hence that form is now much more 
frequently met with than the one with spreading branches. 
Indeed, the tree is now rarely met with in a wild state. It would 
be interesting to know whether the wild form found on mountains: 
in the Levant and in the Himalayas is fastigiate or not, for, 
obviously, the pyramidal form would be less liable to injury from 
the weight of snow than that with horizontal branches, and 
would be in so far better adapted to its environment. Pliny 
says, “ The Cypress grows on the white mountains of Crete. On 
the very summit of these elevations, from which the snows never 
depart, we find the Cypress growing in great abundance, a thing 
that is truly marvellous, seeing that in other countries it will 
only grow in warm localities " (Bohn's translation *). In Ecclesi- 
astieus, Chap. xxiv. v. 15, mention is made of the Cypress and 
its habitat on mountains. “I am set upon hil like a Cedar in 
Libanus and as Cypres tree upon the mountaines of Hermon " 
(cited from Robert Barker’s “The Bible, that is the Holy 
Scriptures, 1615 "). 
In Isaiah, xnrv. 14, the * Cypress" is mentioned as a timber 
tree: “ He heweth him down Cedars, and taketh the Cypress and 
the Oak." But the writer of the article *' Cypress " in Smith's. 
Dietionary of the Bible asserts his inability to assign any definite 
rendering to the word tirzah, and hence the identity of the tree 
intended must still be considered as uncertain. 
Numerous references to the Cypress as known to Latin 
authors, and the uses to which it was put, are given in Duhamel's 
* Traité des Arbres et Arbustes qu'on cultive en France,’ to which 
the reader may be referred for copious and interesting details 
on the history of the plant; as also to the English edition of 
Hehn's * Wanderings of Plants and Animals from their first 
home,’ ed. Stallybrass. 
* Pliny, lib. xvi. cap. xxxiii. :—* ... summisque jugis Crete], unde nives num- 
quam absunt, plurima, quod miremur: alibi non nisi in tepore proveniens, et 
nutricem magnopere fastidiens." 
