104 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. CONIFERE 
Cupressus macrocarpa inhabits the coast of California south of the Bay of Monterey, where it 
occupies an area about two miles long and two hundred yards wide, extending from Cypress Point 
southward to the shores of Carmel Bay, and forms a smaller grove on Point Lobos, the southern 
boundary of the bay. In this restricted region the Monterey Cypress gives a peculiar picturesqueness 
to one of the most beautiful reaches of coast on the continent. The high bright red granite cliffs 
perpetually bathed in spray are crowned by solitary, sentinel-like trees, with low flat heads and branches 
contorted by the gales of the Pacific; just back of the cliffs it forms a grove broken into grass-covered 
glades bright in early spring with countless flowers, where scattered individuals display the greatest size 
and beauty attained by this tree; and farther inland it mingles gradually with Pinus insignis, which 
at this point is the principal inhabitant of the forests of the low rolling coast-hills.’ 
The wood of Cupressus macrocarpa is heavy, hard, and strong, although rather brittle, very 
durable in contact with the soil, close-grained, easily worked, and slightly fragrant, with a satiny sur- 
face susceptible of receiving a beautiful polish; it is clear bright brown streaked with red and yellow, 
with thin light yellow sapwood, and contains thin dark-colored conspicuous bands of small summer- 
cells and numerous hardly distinguishable medullary rays. The specific gravity of the absolutely 
dry wood is 0.6261, a cubic foot weighing 39.02 pounds. 
Although its seeds appear to have reached England in 1838,’ Cupressus macrocarpa was first 
made known to botanists in 1847 by Karl Theodor Hartweg,? who had found it at Cypress Point the 
previous autumn.’ It is now the most universally cultivated coniferous tree in the Pacific states, where 
it has proved hardy from Vancouver’s Island to Lower California, and grows with remarkable rapidity ; 
it is one of the chief ornaments of the parks and gardens of central California, and, enduring an 
annual shortening of the branches, it is often cut into fantastic forms, and is also successfully used in 
hedges and wind-breaks. Cupressus macrocarpa has proved hardy in the southeastern states, where, 
however, it has not been largely planted, in western and southern Europe, where it grows as rapidly as 
it does in California, and has already attained a large size,’ and in temperate South America and Austra- 
ha. In European nurseries a few abnormal seminal forms have appeared, and are occasionally cultivated.° 
1 The vigorous constitution which this tree shows in its ability 3 See ii. 34. 
to withstand long exposure to gales and saline spray on the cliffs 
of the Pacific Ocean, and in its unusual power to adapt itself to 
very different climatic conditions, would seem to indicate that it 
once occupied a much larger area of central California, and has 
been restricted to the shores of Carmel Bay by the gradual drying 
of the climate, or by the direct action of fire during comparatively 
recent times. 
2 Seeds of a Cupressus were given by Mr. Lambert to the Horti- 
cultural Society of London in 1838. These produced plants to 
which the name of Cupressus Lambertiana was provisionally given, 
and which afterwards proved to be Hartweg’s Cupressus macro- 
carpa. (See Gordon, Jour. Hort. Soc. Lond. iv. 296.) 
4 Hartweg, Jour. Hort. Soc. Lond. ii. 187. 
5 Fowler, Gard. Chron. 1872, 285; n. ser. xx. 603. — Gard. 
Chron. ser. 3, xvi. 658. 
§ Cupressus macrocarpa Crippsi (Gordon, Pinetum, ed. 2, 93 
[1875]) is distinguished by its compact habit and the silvery white- 
ness of the young leaves. In Cupressus macrocarpa flagelliformis 
(Gordon, l. c. [1875]) the branches are long and slightly pendulous, 
with elongated branchlets clothed with light glaucous green foliage. 
For other varieties of Cupressus macrocarpa, see Carriére, Traité 
Conif. ed. 2, 167 ; Rev. Hort. 1870, 191, f£. 37. 
In European gardens Cupressus macrocarpa is occasionally culti- 
vated as Cupressus Reinwardtit. 
EXPLANATION OF THE PLATE. 
Pirate DXXV. CUPRESSUS MACROCARPA. 
A flowering and fruiting branch, natural size. 
A staminate flower, enlarged. 
A stamen, front view, enlarged. 
A pistillate flower, enlarged. 
ee a te ae 
enlarged. 
6. A seed, enlarged. 
- A scale of a pistillate flower with its ovules, front view, 
7. Vertical section of a seed, enlarged. 
8. An embryo, enlarged. 
9. End of a branchlet, enlarged. 
10. A leaf, enlarged. 
11. Cross section of a branchlet, enlarged. 
12. A seedling, natural size. 
