Taxodium Pinaceae 69 



35. TAXODIUM Richard 



1. Taxodium distichum (L.) L. C. Richard. Southern Cypress. Map 

 65. The cypress is restricted to five counties in the southwestern part of 

 the state. Collett (Rept. Ind. Geol. Surv. 5: 338. 1874) estimated that 

 20,000 acres of the southwestern part of Knox County were "covered with 

 a fine forest of cypress." In this whole area there are now only a few 

 straggling specimens left. In Little Cypress Swamp in the extreme south- 

 western corner of Knox County the species still persists and is reproducing 

 in small numbers. There were a few cypress sloughs in Posey County but 

 the trees have been slaughtered in most of them. There are no objections 

 to judicious cutting but an attempt to annihilate a species without sufficient 

 cause seems a tragedy. I found a few trees along Cypress Creek in War- 

 rick County about 20 years ago but I was not able to find them recently. 

 It has also nearly disappeared in Vanderburgh County. Baird & Taylor 

 reported it from Clark County but I am excluding this report for lack of 

 confirming specimens or convincing proof that it really did exist in this 

 county. There is, however, some evidence to support this report. Audubon 

 is quoted as having taken Rafmesque into extensive canebrakes in Indiana 

 north of Louisville, and Victor Lyon, former surveyor of Clark County, 

 also told me that he had seen large native pecan trees in the Silver Creek 

 bottoms. I have not been able to study this area sufficiently to find other 

 associate species of the cypress, and I leave this report to be confirmed. 



I have never seen this species growing in Gibson County, but late in 

 1935 I met Smith White, who was 71 years old and who had always lived 

 in the Gibson County Bottoms, and he told me, in the presence of three 

 other persons, that it had never occurred in that area except for a single 

 tree in a slough in a woods on the farm of C. B. Balse, about 3 miles south 

 of East Mt. Carmel. These other three men had also seen the tree to which 

 he referred. 



Atlantic coast from Del. to Fla., westw. along the Gulf to Tex. and 

 northw. in the Mississippi Valley to Ind. 



42. THUJA L. 



1. Thuja occidentals L. Northern White Cedar. Map 66. There are 

 three old reports for this species from Lake County and I have an Umbach 

 specimen collected near Pine. I collected it about 2 miles east of Indiana 

 Harbor in 1906 but I have not seen it since in this county. No doubt later 

 reports are based upon the early reports. Several authors report it from 

 Mineral Springs bog, Porter County and Lyon reports a few trees near 

 Tamarack. I have seen it in only two places in Porter County and, doubt- 

 less, there are only two colonies of it in the county. In the Mineral Springs 

 bog there are quite a number of trees 4-6 inches in diameter but their 

 number is rapidly decreasing. Buried remains of this species have been 

 found as far south as Henry County. 



E. Que. to Man., southw. to Pa., Tenn., 111., and Minn, and in the mts. 

 to N. C. 



