CUPRESSUS FUNEBRIS. 203 



Beutham's labours is the "Genera Plantarum," a work of immense value to botanical 

 science, and which, till its appearance, was one of the most urgent desiderata of 

 the age. The publication began in 1862 and terminated in 1883, a year prior to 

 his death. To enable him to prosecute his researches, Bentham gradually accumulated 

 a vast herbarium and library, which in 1854 he made over to the nation with the 

 sole condition that they should be accessible to the public. These, incorporated 

 with the collections of his friend, Sir William Hooker, formed the basis of the 

 unrivalled collections at Kew. Bentham was a Fellow of the Royal Society, from 

 whom he received the greatest honour in their power to bestow the award of a 

 Royal Medal ; he was also a Member of the Institute of France and a Fellow of 

 the Linnean Society of London, of which he became President in 1861 and continued 

 for thirteen years to preside over the destinies of the Society. Gardeners' Chronicle, 

 XXII. (1884), p. 368. 



Cupressus funebris. 



A tree of singular aspect with a broadly pyramidal crown, wide 

 spreading branches and pendulous branchlets, attaining a height of 

 50 60 feet and usually with an erect, straight trunk denuded of 

 branches along the lower part. In Great Britain a fastigiate or columnar 

 tree, the trunk sometimes divided at a greater or less distance from the 

 ground into two or more secondary much-branched trunks, the branches 

 and their ramifications short, stout, ascending and covered with smooth 

 chestnut-brown bark. Branchlets distichous and alternate, slender and 

 more or less drooping, the youngest branchlet system persistent about 

 three years. Leaves scale-like, deltoid, acute, concresceiit or closely 

 imbricated, bright green. Staminate flowers sub-globose, consisting of 

 eight anthers in four decussate pairs. Strobiles on short footstalks, 

 solitary or in pairs, globose, composed of four pairs of umbinate scales of 

 which the two middle pairs are fertile, each bearing three four 

 seeds.* 



Cupressus funebris, Staunton Embassy, ed. II. 446, t. 41 (1798). Endlicher, 

 Synops. Conif. 58 (1847). Planchon in Flore des Serres, VI. 90, with fig. (1850). 

 Lindley in Paxton's Fl. Gard. I. 46, with tig. Carriere, Traite Conif. ed. II. 161. 

 Parlatore, D. C. Prodr. XVI. 471. Gordon, Pinet. ed. II. 82. Brandis, Forest 

 Fl. N.W. India, 533. Hooker til, Fl. Brit, Ind. V. 646. Masters in Journ. 

 Linn. Soc. XXXI. 337, with figs. 



C. pendula, Lambert, Genus Pinus, ed. II. 124, t. 66 (1828). London, Arb. et 

 Frut. Brit. IV. 2479, with figs. 



This remarkable Cypress first became known to Europeans during 

 Lord Macartney's Embassy to Pekin in 1702 when it was seen 

 growing in a place called " The Vale of Tombs " situated in a 

 mountainous district in the north of China, and which is said to have 

 a more rigorous climate than England. Nothing more was heard of it 

 till it was re-discovered by Mr. Fortune in 1849 about 150 miles up 

 the Hang-chow river in the neighbourhood of the once famous tea 

 country of Whey-chow where he procured seeds which he sent to the 

 late Mr. Standish of Ascot, the first received in this country. 

 Mr. Fortune afterwards saw this Cypress in China further west where 

 it is more common, occurring " frequently in clumps on the sides of 

 the hills where it had a most striking and beautiful effect on the 



* Communicated by Mr. Crombie, Powerscourt Gardens, Co. Wicklow, and Mr. Garland, 

 Killerton Gardens, Exeter. 



