H-/6 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



CUPRESSUS LUSITANICA, Mexican Cypress 





Cupressus lusitanica, Miller, Gard. Diet. No. 3 (1768); Lambert, Genus Pinus, i. 95, t. 65 (1803) ; 



Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iv. 2477 (1838); Forbes, Pin. Woburn. 187, t. 62 (1840); 



Carriere, Conif. ii. 153 (1867); Masters, in Joum. Roy. Hort. Soc. xvii. 1 (1894), and Joum. 



Linn. Soc. (Bot) xxxi. 331 (1896); Kent, Veitch's Man. Conif. 210 (1900). 

 Citpressus pendula, L'Hdritier, Stirp. 15, t. 8 (1784) (not Thunberg). 

 Cupressus glauca, Lamarck, Encycl. ii. 243 (1786); Brotero, Fl. Lusitanica, i. 216 (1804); End- 



licher, Syn. Conif. 58 (1847); Dalzell and Gibson, Bombay Flora, Suppl. 83 (1861); Hooker, 



Fl. Brit. Ind. v. 645 (1888); Masters, in Gard. Chron. x. 761, fig. no (1891); Cooke, Fl. 



Presid. Bombay, ii. 666 (1907). 

 Cupressus Coulteri, 1 Forbes, Pin. Woburn. 190 (1839). 

 Cupressus Lindleyi, Klotzsch, in Endlicher, Syn. Conif. 59 (1847); Hemsley, in Biol. Cent. Amer. 



iii. 183 (1882). 

 Cupressus Ehrenbergii, Kunze, in Linnaa, xx. 16 (1847). 

 Cupressus Karwinskyana, Regel, in Gartenflora, vi. 346 (1857). 

 Cupressus sinensis. 2, Lee, ex Gordon, Pinetum, 63 (1858). 

 Cupressus mexicana, 3 Koch, Dendrologie, ii. pt. 2, 159 (1873). 





A tree, attaining in Mexico 100 ft. in height and 12 ft. in girth. Bark reddish 

 brown, Assuring longitudinally into long thin brown strips. Branches widely spread- 

 ing with pendulous branchlets. Branchlet systems alternate, not distichous, 

 spreading at varying angles, bi-pinnate, with the pinnae not disposed in one plane. 

 Ultimate branchlets tetragonal, slightly compressed, ^ in. wide, -fa in. thick. 

 Leaves nearly uniform in four ranks, fa in. long, appressed, but slightly free at the 

 tips, ovate-acuminate, often mucronate, convex from side to side, occasionally marked 

 with a depressed circular pit. 



Staminate flowers yellowish, \ in. long ; stamens about 20. Cones in the first 

 year covered with a glaucous bloom, with the points of the scales spreading and 

 reflexed ; in the second year ripening and letting out the seeds, and remaining on 

 the branches for about a year afterwards, globose, about \ in. in diameter, on 

 straight long stalks, dark reddish brown, but covered with a glaucous bloom, whitish 

 and thick in trees growing in Mexico, France, and Portugal, faint or absent in 

 England and Ireland ; scales eight, each with a central, usually prominent, triangular 

 and reflexed process. Seeds eight to ten on each scale, \ in. long, brown, with 

 conspicuous resin-vesicles ; wing narrow with a translucent border. 



1 The plant described by Forbes in 1839 as C. Coulteri was raised from seeds taken from a cone, said to hare been 

 fifteen years old, in Coulter's herbarium. Loudon, Encycl. Trees, 1077 (1842) states that this plant was raised at Glasnevin 

 in 1837 ; but as Coulter did not arrive in Mexico till 1834 there must be some error in the age ascribed to the seeds. A 

 specimen in the Kew herbarium, dated 1878, from the tree at Glasnevin is C. lusitanica, and this tree is probably one of the 

 rare Mexican cypresses which was destroyed by a storm in 1878, as Mr. F. W. Moore informs me. Further storms in 1883 

 and 1893 swept away the remaining Mexican trees at Glasnevin. Masters, in Joum. Linn. Soc. (Bot.) xxxi. 348 (1896) is 

 in error in identifying the specimen of C. Coulteri, preserved at Kew, with C. Macnabiana. 



1 Specimens cultivated under this name at Tokai, near Cape Town, are C. lusitanica. 



s A tree cultivated under this name at Glasnevin, which was destroyed in 1878, is C. lusitanica, according to a branch 

 preserved in the Kew herbarium. 



