292 FAMILIAR TREES AND THEIR LEAVES. 



land westward to Missouri and throughout the 

 South.* The tree is often completely surrounded by 



water, from which it rises 

 straight as an arrow. In the 

 water and growing up from 

 the roots are frequently seen 

 strange, lumpy, conical growths 

 which are called " knees " ; in a 

 cypress swamp these conspic- 

 uous formations invariably at- 

 tract attention.f 

 The leaves of the cypress are 

 deciduous, flat, light olive -green, 

 and from seven sixteenths to three 

 quarters of an inch long ; they are 

 sometimes (on the smaller and flow- 

 ering branchlets) awl -shaped and overlapping. The 

 general color of the tree is a dull, deep green. The 

 roundish cones are an inch or so long, with closed, 

 thickish, irregular scales. 



Bald Cypress. 



* At Chapultepee, Mexico, there is an American cypress which, 

 when the Spaniards entered the country in 1520, was called " The 

 Cypress of Montezuma," being then of immense size, over forty 

 feet in girth and 120 feet in height. 



f At every " knee " a downward, strong root deeply penetrates 

 the ground ; these " knee " roots are the anchors by which the bald 

 cypress is held firmly in its soft and boggy bed. 



There is a fine specimen of the bald cypress, 40 feet high, and 

 with a symmetrical figure, at Dosoris, Long Island. 



