HARDWOOD RECORD 



17 



note of the woods' growth of bald cy- 

 press : 



' ' There is a strangeness in the ways and 

 majestic aloofness of the bald cypress. It 

 is not as other trees. In the Atlantic and 

 Gulf states, where it sometimes forms exten- 

 sive forests, few can enter without feeling 

 a desire to know its history. It is ingenious, 

 too. That it may prevent the escape of 

 moisture and resist the violence of autumnal 

 gales is thought to be the reason 

 that its leaves, which may have been 

 slender and spread out from the 

 branches, sometimes become close and 

 scale-like. At the time of pollina- 



TYPICAL CYPRESS TREE. LOUISIANA. 



tion, when it is sheauing its golden dust, 

 and with its leaves in various positions, it 

 is represented by the illustration. 



"But more interesting than all else about 

 the tree are the so-called cypress knees, a 

 feature that has baffled the theories and 

 explanations of many. Dr. Charles Mohr, 

 who has studied the subject most profoundly 

 and is an authority on the formation and 

 usefulness of these knees, has been most 

 kind in contributing the following account 

 of them to 'A Guide to the Trees.' In his 

 letter he says: 'The following information 

 has been taken as concisely rs possible from 

 the statements made in the manuscript of 

 my monograph on Taxodium distichum, and 



transmitted to the forestry division of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture: 



' ' ' The pyramidal or conical ercrescences 

 of the roots of the cypress known as 

 cypress knees and which form such a strik- 

 ing peculiarity of the trees are always pro- 

 duced under water, or in a constantly water- 

 soaked soil. They are produced often in 

 great number within a radius of from 

 twenty-five to forty feet or more from the 

 trunk, varying from two to six feet and 

 more in height, and always rise above the 

 water. They are simple or with several 

 tumid divisions and normally bare of leaf- 

 bearing sprouts. In the trees approaching 

 their fuller growth they are most frequently 

 hollow, perfectly smooth on the inside of the 

 shell, with its wood compact and firm. 



" 'The opinion about the uses these knees 

 serve in the household of the tree is divided, 

 and their import to its life is not yet per- 

 fectly understood. On one side, it is con- 

 tended that their purpose is purely mechan- 

 ical, to serve the tree as an additional 

 means for the support of the enormous 

 weight of the tree in the loose ground, and 

 to increase its resistance to the strain to 

 which it is subjected under the pressure of 

 heavy winds. On a close study of the root 

 svstem below ordinary water mark, acci- 

 dentally laid bare, the conclusion can 

 scarcely be avoided that the function of the 

 knees is chiefly mechanical. As an acute 

 observer states, "to strengthen the roots 

 that the tree may anchor itself safely in a 

 yielding soil, acting as trusses to increase 

 their capacity for holding the tree firmly 

 to the soil." This opinion finds confirma- 

 tion in the fact that scarcely any other tree 

 of our forests offers a greater resistance to 

 the force of storms, under the most unfavor- 

 able soil conditions. 



" 'On the other hand it is held that the 

 function of the knees is principally physi- 

 ological by acting as organs of aeration. The 

 exposed parts of the knees effect the absorp- 

 tion, and by their chlorophyll-bearing tissue, 

 the partial decomposition of atmospheric 

 gases under the influence of light, and their 

 transmission to the sap of the roots, promote 

 the process of assimilation in parts of the 

 tree debarred from a sufficient supply of the 

 same. 



" 'With the decay of the tree, the knees 

 rot and finally disappear; the same is said 

 to take place after the drainage of the 

 swamp. Not being needed they are not 

 present in the trees grown on high land. 



" 'From the fact that the knees serve the 

 tree mechanically by increasing the force 

 of the tree to maintain its foothold in a 

 yielding ground and that further by their 

 physiological function the processes involved 

 in its nutrition and growth are promoted, it 

 appears clearly that in the peculiar develop- 

 ment of the root system the cypress possesses 

 the means of adapting itself perfectly to the 

 conditions of its immediate surroundings.' " 



The tree cypress (Cupressus) was once 

 important in the East and is thought by 



many to have been the gopher wood of which 

 the ark was built. Horace Smith in his 

 "Gayeties and Gravities" says: "The 

 gates of St. Peter's at Eome, made of this 

 wood, had lasted from the time of Constan- 

 tine, eleven hundred years, as fresh as new, 

 when Pope Eugenius IV ordered gates of 

 brass in their stead. Some will have it 

 that the wood gopher, of which Noah's ark 

 was made, was cypress." 



Pliny mentions cypress doors that were 

 good after four hundred years' use, and a 

 cypress statue that was sound after having 

 stood the suns and rains of six hundred 

 years. Herodotus and other ancient authors 

 often refer to it. Authorities in the middle 

 ages thought that cypress would never de- 

 cay. The Oriental cypress was much prized 

 for mummy cases, and living trees long 

 figured as funeral emblems, and to this day 

 are planted over graves in Italy and Turkey. 

 The common or evergreen cypress is the 

 common European species, while the true 

 cypress seen in this country is used almost 

 exclusively for hedges and ornamentation. 



In this country cypress has attained a 

 commercial output largely along the Missis- 



FOLIAGE OF BALD CYPRESS. 



sippi river and Gulf coast and Atlantic lower 

 coast, of approximately 750> 00,000 feet an- 

 nually. In the locality of its growth it has 

 long been esteemed as desirable building 

 material for frames, siding, flooring and 

 shingles, but it is only within the last 

 decade that the wood las achieved commer- 

 cial importance throughout all parts of the 

 United States. New England, New York, 

 Pennsylvania and the entire middle West are 

 large consumers of cypress, where it is em- 

 ployed in house finish and almost exclusively 

 in horticultural work, being utilized not 

 only for the frame work of the immense 

 green-houses under which flowers and early 

 vegetables are grown, but entering very 

 largely into the construction of the interior 



