Further observations on Taxodium 



Roland M. Harper 



Since the publication of my paper on Taxodium distichum and 

 related species ^ I have spent three more seasons in the coastal 

 plain of Georgia, where I have now had the southeastern repre- 

 sentatives of this genus under observation every month in the year 

 except December, and I am now able to present some additional 

 notes on them. 



One reviewer of that paper (who is among the foremost of 



A 



has 



expressed the opinion "that Taxodium imbricarium will prove to 

 be merely an ecological variety " of T. distichum. If this is the 

 case, then some hundreds if not thousands of long established and 

 universally accepted species will have to be placed in the same 

 category. But the fact that these two species remain perfectly 

 distinct when cultivated in the same soil (as noted on the last page 

 of my previous paperj, not to mention the considerable difference 

 in their geographical distribution, ought to dispose of the "ecolog- 

 ical variety " question. From all the evidence at hand at the 

 present writing the conclusion is irresistible that T. ijubricarium is 

 abundantly distinct. The only substantial argument which could 

 be urged against the recognition of this species Is the occurrence 

 of trees intermediate (in some characters at least) between it and 

 T, distichum. But these are outnumbered a hundred to one (in 

 Georgia at least) by typical and unmistakable specimens of T 

 imbricaiium, f and should not invalidate the species any more 

 than the intermediate forms in countless other genera do. 



My work will doubtless admit of some criticism from a geo- 

 logical standpoint, however. My attention has been called by a 

 geologist friend to the fact that what has been passing under the 



*BuIl. Torrey Club 29 : 383-399. June, 1902. 



fl have records of three or four hundred stations in Georgia for T. imbricarium, 

 at each of which there may be from ten to several thousand individuals; while the 

 intermediate form I have seen only about twenty times, and never more than a hundred 

 trees at a time. 



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