112 ESSAYS. 
the average rate of our White Pine for the same period, the 
estimate would be reduced to 1100 years; which is probably 
much beneath the truth. 
But the most stately tree in North America — apparently 
an evergreen species of Taxodium or American Cypress — 
was subsequently observed by Douglas in Upper California. 
“This tree,” he says, “gives the mountains a most peculiar, I 
was almost going to say, awful appearance — something which 
plainly tells that we are not in Europe. I have repeatedly 
measured specimens of this tree, two hundred and seventy 
feet long, and thirty-two feet round at three feet above the 
ground. Some few I saw upwards of three hundred feet 
high.” ! Truly these are trees, 
“to equal which the tallest pine, 
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast 
Of some great ammiral, were but a wand.” 
This naturally brings us to the proper North American Cy- 
press (Taxodium distichum) ; one of the largest and most 
remarkable trees of our southern States, but which appears 
to attain its most ample development in the tierras templadas 
of Mexico. Bartram gives a characteristic description of the 
tree. 
“Tt generally grows in the water, or in low flat lands, near 
the banks of great rivers and lakes, that are covered a great 
part of the year with two or three feet depth of water; and 
that part of the trunk which is subject to be under water, 
and four or five feet higher up, is greatly enlarged by prodi- 
gious buttresses, or pilasters, which in full grown trees pro- 
ject out on every side to such a distance that several men 
might easily hide themselves in the hollows between. Each 
pilaster terminates under ground in a very large, strong, 
serpentine root, which strikes off and branches every way 
just under the surface of the earth; and from these roots 
grow woody cones, called Cypress-knees, four, five, and six 
feet high, and from six to eighteen inches and two feet in 
diameter at their bases. The larger ones are hollow, and 
1 Journal of Douglas’s second visit to the Columbia, ete., in Hooker, 
“Compan. to Bot. Mag.,” ii. p. 150. 
