150 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. CONIFERZ. 
Taxodium during the miocene and pliocene times flourished in the Arctic Circle, and was widely 
distributed over central Europe, which it inhabited until the late miocene period, the interior of North 
America, Kamtschatka, and the Aleutian Islands, but is now confined to the coast region of the 
southern United States and to Mexico.’ Two species are distinguished ; one is an inhabitant of the 
United States and the other of the Mexican highlands.’ 
Taxodium produces wood valued in construction and the arts, and its bark is rich in tannin.° 
In the United States Taxodium is not seriously injured by insects* or attacked by dangerous 
fungal diseases.° 
Taxodium can be easily raised from seeds, which germinate at the end of a few weeks. 
The generic name, from ré£os and eidos, indicates the resemblance of the leaves to those of the 
Yew-tree. 
1 Heer, Fl. Foss. Arct. 12.— Lesquereux, U. S. Geolog. Surv. 
vii. 73, t. 6, f. 12-14°. — Saporta, Origine Paléontologique des Arbres, 
89. — Zittel, Handb. Paleontolog. ii. 294. 
2 Taxodium mucronulatum, Tenore, Ann. Sci. Nat. sér. 3, xix. 
355 (1853) (Ind. Sem. Hort. Neap.1853) ; Mem. Soc. Ital. Modena, 
xxv. pt. ii. 203, t. 1, 2. — Parlatore, De Candolle Prodr. xvi. pt. ii. 
441.— Hemsley, Bot. Biol. Am. Cent. iii. 185. — K. Koch, Dendr. 
ii. pt. ii. 198. 
Taxodium distichum, Humboldt, Bonpland & Kunth, Nov. Gen. 
et Spec. ii. 4 (not Richard) (1817).— Kunth, Syn. Pl. Aoquin. i. 
351. — Seemann, Bot. Voy. Herald, 335. 
Taxodium Mexicanum, Carriere, Traité Conif. 147 (1855). — 
Henkel & Hochstetter, Syn. Nadelh. 261. — Beissner, Handb. 
Nadeth. 155. 
Taxodium distichum Mexicanum, Gordon, Pinetum, 307 (1858). 
The Mexican Bald Cypress, which I have seen growing only in 
the neighborhood of Monterey in Nuevo Leon, where I was unable 
to distinguish it by habit or foliage from the species of the southern 
states, differs from this tree in its flowering season, which is the 
autumn, in the persistence of its leaves during the winter, in its 
more elongated panicles of staminate flowers, and in its more nu- 
The 
autumnal flowers and more persistent leaves might be accounted 
merous anther-cells, often from seven to nine in number. 
for by the warmer climate of Mexico ; the greater or lesser number 
of anther-cells is a character of little stability, and further inves- 
tigation will probably show that the tree of the swamps of the 
southern states and the tree of the Mexican highlands are specifi- 
cally identical, although with the scanty information at my disposal 
it seems necessary to adopt the opinion of the best European bota- 
nists who have seen the Mexican tree in Italian gardens, where it 
was first distinguished, and consider it specifically distinct. 
Taxodium mucronulatum is said to be widely scattered over east- 
ern and southern Mexico, where it grows near streams, and to form 
extensive forests on mountain slopes. It is best known by a few 
individuals which have attained a great age and size. The largest 
of these trees of which authentic measurements are recorded stands 
within the grounds of the village church in the centre of the little 
town of Tule on the road from Oaxaca to Guatemala by way of 
Tehuantepec. According to latest measurements, its trunk at five 
feet from the ground has, in following all its sinuosities, a cireum- 
ference of one hundred and forty-six feet, while the actual girth 
is one hundred and four feet, the greatest diameter forty feet and 
Its height is one hundred and fifty feet, and 
It is 
the least twenty feet. 
the spread of its branches one hundred and forty-one feet. 
believed to be two thousand years old. 
The Cypress of Montezuma, which is the largest of the Cypress- 
trees in the gardens of Chepultepec, standing near the spring from 
which the water-supply of the Aztec capital was obtained, was a 
noted tree four centuries ago. It is about one hundred and seventy 
feet high, with a trunk to which different travelers have ascribed a 
It has been 
In the 
valley of Peopatella a Taxodium with a trunk about twenty feet in 
circumference varying from forty to nearly fifty feet. 
estimated that this tree has lived through seven centuries. 
diameter raises its head, now shorn by decay of much of its gran- 
deur, high above the little church built to commemorate the battle 
in which the soldiers of Cortes went down before the Aztec hordes. 
(See Humboldt, Essai Pol. Nouv. Esp. ed. 2, 54.— A. De Candolle, 
Bib. Univ. Genéve, lxvi. 392.— Gray, Scientific Papers, ii. 113. — 
Garden and Forest, iii. 150, £. 28.) 
8 Trimble, Garden and Forest, ix. 162. 
* Borers in the living trunks of Taxodium are undescribed, but 
the larve of Eacles imperialis, Drury, Orgyia inornata, Beutenmul- 
ler, Oiketicus Abbotii, Grote, and other insects have been found on 
the foliage. A gall, Cecidomyia Cupressi-ananassa, Riley, has been 
described as abundant on these trees in Tennessee (Am. Entomol. 
ii. 244). 
5 Taxodium in the United States seems to be remarkably exempt 
from the attacks of fungi. About a dozen species have been re- 
corded upon it, but they are insignificant in their effects. Spherella 
Tazodii, Cooke, and Metaspheria cavernosa, Ellis & Everhart, are 
the principal parasitic fungi attacking Taxodium distichum, the for- 
mer injuring the leaves and the latter the branches. A species of 
dry rot in living timber often diminishes its value, and in Louisiana 
and Mississippi is said to affect at least one third of all the trees. 
(See Dickson & Brown, Am. Jour. Sct. ser. 2, v. 15 (On the Cypress 
Timber of Mississippi and Louisiana.) 
