CUP11ESSUS LAWSOXIANA. 205 



of San Diego, frequently ascending the canons of the mountain chains of 

 central California to nearly 3,000 feet elevation and attaining its largest 

 size near mountain streams. It covers in Monterey and Mendocino 

 counties extensive tracts of sandy barrens or rocky slopes extending 

 inland a few miles from the coast, growing as a low bush frequently 

 only a few inches high.* 



In Great Britain Gupre*u G-ovemanx is hardy but comparatively 

 short lived ; it thrives bast in the western and south-western counties 

 of England and in Wales and Ireland. Like all the cultivated 

 Cypresses it assumes two distinct habits, the spreading and the fasti- 

 giate ; the oldest trees of spreading habit rarely exceed 20 25 feet 

 in height, offcener much less, and have a trunk usually divided near 

 the ground and a broad umbrella-like crown ; the fastigiate form has 

 a more slender trunk with ascending branches and attains a height 

 of 30 35 feet. In the early spring this Cypress is covered with 

 innumerable yellow staminate flowers, and so plentifully is the pollen 

 produced that when shed, the ground beneath the trees appears covered 

 with yellow dust. It is also extremely prolific ; cones are produced from 

 an early age, arid after a few years the trees become so loaded with 

 them that their vitality is eventually exhausted. 



The species was named in compliment to Mr. James Robert Gowen, 

 a prominent horticulturist of his time and Secretary to the Horticultural 

 Society of London at the date of its introduction. 



Gupressus Lawsoniana. 



The tallest of all Cypresses, at its greatest development attaining 1 

 200 feet high with a trunk 12 feet in diameter near the abruptly 

 enlarged base and free of branches for over 100 feet ; the general height 

 ranges from 120 to 150 feet. Bark remarkable for its thickness, being 

 more than a foot thick on old trees, reddish "brown with two distinct 

 layers, the inner being darker and more compact than the outer which 

 is divided into great broad-based rounded ridges separated on the surface 

 into small, thick, closely appressed scales ; on young stems and on the 

 branches, the bark is thin and slightly scaly, f In Great Britain a medium- 

 sized or tall tree with a stoutish trunk tapering from a swollen base 

 and covered with cinnamon-brown bark which peels off in thickish 

 flakes. Branches short, mostly horizontal, sometimes more or less, 

 curved, terminating in leafy, froiidose expansions. Branchlets with 

 lateral ramification, slender, often flexible and sub-pendulous. Leaves in 

 decussate pairs, bright dark green, occasionally glaucescent, on the axial 

 growths ovate-oblong, acuminate, adnate at the base, free at the apex, 

 and persisting three four years ; on the lateral and younger shoots 

 scale-like, triangular-ovate, concrescent and glandular. Staminate flowers 

 small, cylindric, crimson, with 12 16 anthers. Strobiles globose,. 

 0'25 0*4 inch in diameter, composed of eight sub-quadrate scales, the 

 lower four fused together at their base, each scale except the uppermost 

 pair bearing two five seeds. 



* Silva of Xorth America, Vol. X. p. 107. t Idem. p. 119. 



Occasionally with two live secondary trunks that have arisen from the lowermost 

 branches from which roots were emitted while the trees were still young. 



