ARBORETUM NOTES. 165 
CONTE ERA. 
CUPRESSINEA. 
Taxodium 
distichum 
young shoots of the year. By a peculiar twist in 
every leaf, just where it separates from the branch, 
they are thrown into two opposite ranks or 
directions in the same plane, so that it is difficult 
not to believe that they are really inserted in two 
opposite lines. But by looking at the twigs of 
the past year, on which there remain only the 
adherent bases of the leaves, we easily perceive 
that their insertion is really spiral. The same 
may be said of sequoia sempervirens, and nearly 
the Same of those kinds of Fir (the Silver Firs), 
which have two-ranked leaves. 
It is a very extraordinary fact, clearly ascertained 
by the researches of Heer and others, within the 
last years, that the deciduous Cypress, was in 
a former age of the earth, one of the most common 
and wide-spread trees of the extreme northern 
regions. Abundant and unmistakeable fossil 
remains of it have been brought by recent 
explorers from the Meiocene Tertiary deposits 
which have been discovered on the coasts of 
Greenland, of Spitzbergen, and lastly, of Grinnell 
Land; in this last locality, it was found by the 
last Arctic expedition as far north as 81° 45! of 
latitude. *As Heer observes, there can be little 
doubt that in those times it ranged as far towards 
the pole as land extended. It had indeed a wide 
* Heer, in Quarterly Fournal Geol. Soc. vol. 34. pt, 1. 
