CONIFERS 77 



11. CUPRESSUS, L. Cypress. 



Resinous trees, with bark often separating into long shred-like scales, fragrant 

 durable usually light brown heartwood, pale yellow sap wood, stout erect branches 

 becoming horizontal in old age, slender i-angled branchlets, and naked buds. Leaves 

 scale-like, ovate, acute or acuminate or rarely rounded at the apex, with slender 

 spreading or appressed tips, thickened, rounded, and often glandular on the back, 

 opposite in pairs, becoming brown and woody before falling; on vigorous leading 

 shoots and young plants needle-shaped or linear -lanceolate and spreading. Flowers 

 minute, monoecious, terminal, yellow, the two sexes on separate branchlets; the 

 staminate oblong, of numerous decussate stamens, with short filaments enlarged 

 into broadly ovate connectives bearing 2-6 globose pendulous anther-cells; pistil- 

 late oblong or subglobose, composed of 6-10 thick decussate scales bearing in sev- 

 eral rows at tlie base of the ovuliferous scale numerous erect bottle-shaped ovules. 

 Fruit an erect nearly globose cone maturing in the second year, composed of the 

 much thickened ovule-bearing scales of the flower, abruptly dilated, clavate, and 

 flattened at the apex, bearing the remnants of the flower-scales developed into short 

 central more or less thickened mucros or bosses; long-persistent on the branch 

 after the escape of the seeds. Seeds numerous, in several rows, erect, thick, and 

 acutely angled or compressed, with thin lateral wings; seed-coat of 2 layers, the 

 outjBr thin and membranaceous, the inner thicker and crustaceous; cotyledons 3 or 

 4, longer than the superior radicle. 



Cupressus with ten or twelve species is confined to Pacific North America and 

 Mexico in the New World and to southeastern Europe, southwestern Asia, the Hima- 

 layas, and China in the Old World, Of the exotic species Cupressus semper vir ens, L., 

 of southeastern Europe and southwestern Asia, and especially its pyramidal variety, 

 are often planted for ornament in the south Atlantic and Pacific states. 



Cupressus is the classical name of the Cypress-tree. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES. 



Leaves obscurely g-landular. 



Branchlets stout; leaves dark green. 1. C. macrocarpa (G). 



Branchlets stout ; leaves glaucous. 2. C. Arizonica (F, H). 



Branchlets slender ; leaves dark green. 3. C. Goveniana (G). 



Branchlets stout ; leaves dark green ; seeds black. 4. C. pygmaea (G). 



Leaves conspicuously glandular ; branchlets slender ; leaves dark green, often slightly 



glaucous. 5. C. Macnabiana (G). 



1. Cupressus macrocarpa, Gord. Monterey Cypress. 



Leaves about \' long, dark green, on young plants prominently ridged below and 

 \'-\' long; deciduous at the end of three or four years. Flowers opening late in Feb- 

 ruary or early in March, yellow; staminate with 6 or 8 stamens, their connectives 

 bearing 4 or 5 dark-colored pollen-sacs; pistillate oblong, with spreading acumi- 

 nate scales. Fruit clustered on short stout peduncles, oblong, slightly puberulous, 

 I'-iy long, about |' broad, composed of 4 or 6 pairs of scales, with broadly ovate thick- 

 ened or occasionally on the upper scales subconical bosses, the scales of the upper 

 and lower pairs being smaller than the others and sterile; seeds about 20 under each 

 fertile scale, angled, light chestnut-brown, about ^^' long. 



A tree, often 60o-70 high, with a short trunk 2-3 or exceptionally 5-6 



