172 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



with the scale, its apex appears on the upper part of the scar as a minute reflexed 

 point. Some of the scales are sterile ; the others bear each two erect unequally 

 three-angled seeds. 



Taxodium is readily distinguishable in winter from other deciduous trees by the 

 peculiar buds and branchlet scars which mark the twigs. The latter are very 

 slender, terete, glabrous, and brown in colour, and bear at their apex the two 

 pseudo-terminal buds described above, one of which, however, is often aborted in 

 trees growing in England. Scattered over the twigs appear the branchlet scars and 

 the lateral buds. The former are small circular depressions, surrounded by a 

 slightly raised rim, and having a single dot or a minute protuberance in their 

 centre. The lateral buds, also previously described, are smaller than the branchlet 

 scars, and on twigs of one year arise just above the minute scars left by the primary 

 leaves, in which a single dot may be made out with difficulty. Single-dotted 

 leaf-scars occur in Larix and Pseudolarix ; but in these genera branchlet scars 

 are absent, and the twigs show spurs or short shoots, which are wanting in 

 Taxodium. 



The genus Taxodium was once common and widely distributed over the 

 Holarctic region. During Miocene and Pliocene times it was spread over the 

 interior of North America, throughout Europe, and in north-eastern Siberia. In 

 the present day it is restricted to the Southern United States and Mexico. 



The genus can only be confounded with Glyptostrobus, now represented by one 

 living species, G, heterophyllus, Endlicher,^ a native of the province of Canton, in 

 Southern China, where it occurs as a small tree along the banks of rivers and 

 streams. Like Taxodium, it has deciduous foliage and branchlets. The leaves 

 assume two forms on ordinary branchlets long and linear and arranged in three 

 rows, on fruiting branchlets closely imbricated, scale-like, concave internally and 

 carinate externally. The cone, pyriform in shape, is composed of scales, which are 

 not peltate, but elongated and arising from its base. The bract coalesces with the 

 scale below ; but above the middle is free and recurved, leaving bare the 5 to 7 lobed 

 summit of the scale. The seeds, oblong or obovate, often short-spurred at the base, 

 are narrowly winged on the sides and prolonged at the base into a flat, lancet-shaped 

 wing. Glyptostrobus heterophyllus is not hardy at Kew, where specimens may be 

 seen in the temperate house. A plant of it is reported to be growing in the open 

 air at Castlewellan. 



Glyptostrobus heterophyllus, Endlicher, Syn. Conif. 70 (1847); Masters, Jour. Bot. 1900, p. 37, and Card. Chron. 

 xxvi. 489 (1899) ; Thuya pensilis, Staunton, Embassy to China, ii. 436 (1798) ; Lambert, Pintis, ed. 2, ii. 115, f. 51. 



