TAXODIUM DISTICHUM. 281 



Taxodium distichum. 



A lofty deciduous tree attaining its greatest development in Mexico, 

 where it towers to a height of 175 or more feet with a massive 

 trunk 10 15 feet in diameter, and individual trees are known greatly 

 exceeding these dimensions.* Even near its northern limit in Indiana 

 and Delaware it attains in places a height of 150 feet with the 

 diameter of the trunk 6 8 feet above the swollen buttresses at the 

 base. In general, "the trunk with furrowed dark red bark, ascends 

 perfectly straight from its enlarged base, forming a tapering column 

 80 90 feet high when it divides into a number of long, stout 

 horizontal branches which form a wide, flat, Cedar-like top." In Great 

 Britain, Taxodium distichum is variable in size and aspect, according to 

 situation ; when standing near water it is often 80 100 feet high ; 

 the trunk cylindric or very gradually tapering, rarely lobed as in 

 America, but projecting at the base into rounded buttresses. Bark 

 peeling off into longitudinal shreds exposing a reddish brown fibrous 

 inner cortex. Branches usually short in proportion to height of trunk, 

 spreading horizontally, and much ramified at the distal end; branchlets 

 slender with light reddish brown bark striated longitudinally. Buds 

 minute, ovate, acute, mostly axillary. Leaves from fifty to one hundred 

 on each branchlet, inserted on epidermal outgrowths and spirally 

 arranged, but owing to a slight twist at the base, pseudo-distichous, 

 linear-lanceolate, apiculate or sub-acute, 0'25 0*75 inch long, soft light 

 green with a shallow sunk line along the midrib above, keeled and 

 stomatiferous beneath, changing to orange-brown in autumn, and falling 

 off with the slender shoots on which they are inserted. Flowers 

 monoacious. Staminate flowers in panicles 3 5 inches long on short 

 pedicels surrounded at the base with closely imbricated, triangular, 

 scale-like bracts ; stamens six eight in decussate pairs. Ovuliferons 

 flowers solitary, terminal or pseudo-terminal on branchlets of the previous 

 year, sub-globose, composed of numerous imbricated scales, bearing at 

 the base on the ventral face two erect ovules. Strobiles ripening in 

 one season, somewhat smaller than a walnut, ovoid-globose, consisting 

 of about nine spirally arranged, imbricated, fertile scales, and several 

 smaller sterile ones. Seeds three-angled, the testa produced into three 

 unequal lateral wings. 



Taxodium. distichum, L. C. Richard in Annales du Musee de Paris, loc. cit. 

 supra (1810) ; and Mem. sur les Conif. 52 (1826). Brongniart, Ann. So. Nat. XXX. 

 182. Lambert, Genus Pinus, II. t 26. London, Arb. et Frut. Brit. IV. 2481, with 

 figs. Forbes, Pinet. Woburn, 177, t. 60. Endlicher, Synops. Conif. 68. Carriere, 

 Traite Conif. ed. II. 180. Parlatore, D. C. Prodr. XVI. 440. Hoopes, Evergreens, 

 364, with fig. Gordon, Pinet. ed. II. 180. Lawson, Pinet. Brit. II. 205, with figs, 

 (and t. 36, T. Montezumae). Beissner, Nadelholzk. 148, with figs. Masters in 

 Gard. Chron. VII. ser. 3 (1890), p. 324, with fig. ; and Journ. R. Hort. Soc. 



* There is a gigantic specimen at Santa Maria del Tule whose trunk, following the 

 sinuosities, has a circumference of 146 feet, or about 104 feet girth. Another tree of 

 historic interest stands in the garden of Chapultepec, near the city of Mexico ; it is called 

 the Cypress of Montezuma by Humboldt, and it is the tree under which Cortes, the Spanish 

 conqueror of Mexico, passed the night (La noche triste) after the defeat and expulsion of 

 the Spaniards from the city. It is 170 feet high, and the trunk is from 40 to 50 feet 

 in circumference. Both trees are figured in the Garden and Forest, the first in Vol. X 

 p. 125, and the second in Vol. III. p. 155. 



