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the year in spring, when it puts forth its leaves of 

 tender green; in autumn, when its feathery foliage 

 turns to the softest shades of old gold and brown or 

 orange-brown, lovely beyond words against the deep 

 blue of an October sky. Even in winter the bald 

 cypress has a fine beauty. Being deciduous, it drops 

 its leaves, like the larch, and I know of no finer, more 

 delicate sight in winter than the exquisite effect of this 

 tree's wire-like framework of bare branches against 

 the golden flame of a dying winter's day. 



The tree grows to very large proportions in the 

 southern swamps, especially in Florida. It gets its 

 name, Taxodium, from two Greek words meaning yew- 

 like, which refers to the leaves. In the autumn you 

 may chance to see its fruit, little round cones, hanging 

 like small green apples, amid the fast thinning leaves. 

 These cones are very interesting things, and if you look 

 sharply about the base of the tree you may find bits of 

 them, for they split apart and fall in pieces. The scales 

 are valvate, that is, join edge to edge, and if you find 

 pieces enough you may be able to reconstruct the whole 

 cone or seed ball. 



As we stand here facing the bald cypress, the Walk 

 runs to the right and to the left about the Pond. We 

 will take the left hand now, and go westward with it, 

 along the southern border of the Pond and parallel 

 with Fifty-ninth Street. Proceeding then westward, 

 along the southern border of the Pond, a little beyond 

 the bald cypress, you pass beneath the overhanging 

 tresses of a fine old weeping willow. I suppose there 

 is no one who does not know a weeping willow, so it 



