280 TAXODIUM. 



TAXODIUM. 



L. C. Richard in Aimales du Musee de Paris, XVI. 298 (1810). Endlicher, Synops. 

 Conif. 66 (1847). Parlatore, D. C. Prodr. XVI. 439 (1868). Bentham and Hooker, Gen. 

 Plant. III. 429 (1881). Eichler in Engler and Prantl, Nat. Pfl. Fam. 90 (1887). Masters 

 in Joum. Linn. Soc. XXX. 24 (1893). 



Two species are here included in Taxodium, of which T. distickum 

 (the type) was referred by Linnaeus and the older botanists to Cupressus 

 whence probably arose its popular name, the deciduous Cypress. It 

 was separated from Cupressus by the elder Richard* who founded upon 

 it the genus Taxodium now firmly established notwithstanding the 

 attempts of Mirbel and Spach to replace it by Schubertia of the first 

 named author. With the American type Brongniart joined the Chinese 

 Water Pine, in which he is followed by Bentham and Hooker in the 

 " Genera Plantarum." Endlicher, however, proposed for the Chinese 

 species a new genus which he called Glyptostrobus ; but the structure 

 of the fruit on which he chiefly relied for separating it from Taxodium 

 does not seem to afford characters sufficiently distinct to justify the 

 separation,! and the staminate flowers which were unknown to him 

 differ only in arrangement and position from those of f. distich-urn. 

 Nevertheless further investigation of fresh specimens of the Chinese 

 species is required to determine satisfactorily the relationship between 

 them ; as an opportunity of doing this is not likely to be afforded 

 in this country for an indefinite period, it seems better to unite 

 provisionally the American and Chinese species under one genus. 



By some authors the Mexican Taxodium is described as a species 

 distinct from the northern type, but the characters adduced in support 

 of this course seem to be so small in value that it may be more 

 properly regarded as a geographical form that has slightly diverged 

 from the type under the influence of climate, altitude and environment. 

 Like other prominent members of the Taxodinese, the deciduous 

 Cypress lias a record reaching far back into geological ages, and at 

 one period it had a distribution as extensive as any of them. In 

 Tertiary times, and perhaps earlier, it was not only spread over Europe 

 from the Mediterranean to the Baltic, but also over North America 

 and Greenland ; that it was also once a denizen of Great Britain is 

 proved by the fossil remains of it found near Bournemouth and other 

 places ; it seems to have disappeared in the Pleiocene Age. It is 

 still spread over a considerable area of North America which may 

 be roughly stated as lying between the 39th parallel of north latitude 

 and the Gulf of Mexico, and extending from the Atlantic Ocean 

 westwards to about the 98th meridian ; it also spreads southwards into 

 Mexico as far as Oaxaca, attaining in that country enormous dimensions. 

 The name Taxodium is derived from raog " (the Yew), and tilog 

 (external appearance), from the resemblance of the foliage, as regards its 

 arrangement, to that of the Yew. 



Louis Claude Richard and Achille Richard, father and son, were eminent French 

 botanists of the early part of the nineteenth century. 



t See Gardeners' Chronicle, XXVI. ser. 3 (1899), p. 489, where the seeds are said to be 

 pendulous, not erect as in Taxodium distkhum. 



