60 TREE ANCESTORS 



of the last few thousands of years. The wood of this IMexican 

 species is soft and relatively weak and not to be compared mth 

 that of our commercial species, which is perhaps fortunate or 

 some vandal would ere now, probably have sacrificed these memo- 

 rials of the past as so many of our sequoias have been sacrificed. 



The cypress line is a very ancient one, in fact the family to which 

 it belongs, known as the Taxodiaceae, is characterized throughout 

 by an ancient lineage, a peculiar modern distribution, and the 

 isolation of its various members. Most of them have many ex- 

 tinct species and there are several totally extinct genera. Only 

 two of the genera have as many as three existing species (Taxo- 

 dium and Athrotaxis) ; three of the genera have but two existing 

 species (Sequoia and Glyptostrobus) ; and four have but a single 

 existing species (Sciadopitys, Cunninghamia, Taiwania and Cryp- 

 tomeria). Their present distribution is also an indication of former 

 greatness. Thus Glyptostrobus is Chinese though once cosmopoli- 

 tan; Sciadopitys is Japanese; Taiwania is confined to the Island of 

 Formosa; Cunninghamia and Cryptomeria are Chino-Japanese 

 although the former was once a member of the North American 

 flora; Athrotaxis is Australian although formerly found in many 

 parts of the world; Sequoia is making its last stand on our Pacific 

 coast; and Taxodium is confined to the South Atlantic and Gulf 

 border region. The family is totally unrepresented in South 

 America, Africa and Europe at the present time, although common 

 enough in Europe as recently as the time immediately preceding 

 the Ice Age. 



There are no certainly identified records of ancestral bald cypress 

 in the Cretaceous period, although it is quite possible that some of 

 the similar appearing twigs of fossil conifers that have been re- 

 ferred to Sequoia may really be those of an early cypress. In the 

 absence of preserved cones it would be impossible to decide such 

 a question of relationship. The cypress is therefore less ancient 

 than Sequoia, Sciadopitys, Athrotaxis, Cryptomeria and Glypto- 

 strobus, some of which appear to have appeared in the geological 

 record before the close of the Jurassic period. 



