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TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



3. Chamaecyparis Lawsoniana, A. Murr. Port Oiford Cedar. Law^son 



Cypress. 



(Cupressus Lawsoniana, Silva N. Am. x. 110.) 



Leaves bright green, conspicuously glandular on the back, usually not more than 

 ^^' long on lateral branchlets, on leading shoots often spreading at the apex, \' to 

 nearly ^' long; usually dying, turning bright red-brown and falling during their 

 third year. Flowers : starninate with bright red connectives bearing usually 2 pol- 

 len-sacs; pistillate with dark ovate acute spreading scales, each bearing 2-4 ovules. 

 Fruit clustered on the upper lateral branchlets and produced in great profusion, 

 ripening in September and October, globose, about \' in diameter, green and glaucous 

 when full grown, red-brown and often covered with a bloom at maturity, its scales 

 with thin broadly ovate acute reflexed bosses ; seeds 2-4 under each fertile scale, 

 ovate, acute, slightly compressed, \' long, light chestnut-brown, with broad thin wings. 



A tree, often 200 high, with a tall trunk frequently 12 in diameter above its 

 abruptly enlarged base, a spire-like head of small horizontal or pendulous branches 

 clothed with remote fiat spray frequently 6'-8' long. Bark often 10' thick at the 



f-\c, 75 



base of old trees and 3'-4' thick on smaller stems, dark reddish brown, with 2 dis- 

 tinct layers, the inner \'-\' thick, darker, more compact, and firmer than the outer, 

 divided into great broad-based rounded ridges separated on the surface into small 

 thick closely appressed scales. "Wood light, hard, strong, very close-grained, abound- 

 ing in fragrant resin, durable, easily worked, light yellow or almost white, with 

 hardly distinguishable sapwood ; largely manufactured Into lumber used for the 

 interior finish and flooring of buildings, railway-ties, fence-posts, and ship and boat- 

 building, and on the Pacific coast almost exclusively for matches. The resin is a 

 powerful diuretic. 



Distribution. Usually scattered in small groves from the shores of Coos Bay, 

 southwestern Oregon, south to the mouth of the Klamath River, California, ranging 

 inland usually for about thirty miles; also near Waldorf, in Josephine County, Ore- 

 gon, on the slopes of the Siskiyou Mountains, and on the southern flanks of Mt. 

 Shasta; most abundant north of Rogue River on the Oregon coast and attaining its 

 largest size on the western slopes of the Coast Range foothills, forming between Point 



