Taxodium 175 



As ordinarily seen in cultivation it is a small tree of slow growth, and is quite 

 distinct from the Chinese Glyptostrobus heterophyllus, with which it has been 

 occasionally confused. 



3. Var. mucronatum. 



Taxodium mucronatum, Tenore, Ann. Sc. A^at. s^r. 3, xix. 355 (1853). 

 Taxodium mucronulatum, Sargent, Silva N. Am. x. 150, note 2 (1896). 

 Vaxodium Montezuma, Decaisne, Bull. Soc. Bot. de France, i. 71 (1854). 

 Taxodium mexicanum, Carrifere, Traite Conif. 147 (1855). 

 Taxodium distichutn mexicanum, Gordon, Pinetum, 307 (1858). 



This differs from the type in the foliage being more persistent, generally lasting 

 two years on the tree, and in the time of flowering, which is in autumn. The panicles 

 of male flowers are generally more elongated than those of the United States tree. 

 The leaves are usually shorter, lighter green in colour, and blunter at the apex. 



These differences scarcely entitle this form, which occurs in Mexico, to separate 

 specific rank. Specimens ^ of the type, occurring at high elevations ( 1 600 to 2000 feet) 

 in Texas, approach it in character of the foliage ; and in some Florida specimens 

 the panicles of flowers are as large as any occurring on Mexican trees. The 

 cones vary greatly in size and form in trees of Taxodium, occurring both in Mexico 

 and the United States. Sargent, who has seen the tree in Mexico, was unable to 

 distinguish it, by either foliage or habit, from the type. 



It is evidently a geographical form in which certain differences of foliage 

 have been brought about by climatic influence. One is led by a study of the 

 specimens from many different regions to see in Taxodium a single species very 

 variable in the wild state, rather than a number of distinct species. 



Taxodium does not produce knees, so far as we can learn, in Mexico, where 

 trees generally stand upon dry ground. According to Seeman,^ the tree is known in 

 Mexico as Sabino, and is diffused over the whole tableland of that country. There 

 are reported to be extensive forests of it at altitudes varying from 4500 to 7500 

 feet. Concerning, however, the character and distribution of these forests our 

 information is very scanty. Much more is known about the remarkable isolated 

 examples of very old and enormous trees, which have always attracted the attention 

 of travellers in Mexico. The most noted of these is the tree of Santa Maria del 

 Tula, about eighteen miles south-east of the city of Oaxaca, which was measured 

 by Baron Thielmann^ in 1886, when its height was between 160 and 170 feet. Its 



Specimens collected by Hillier in Keir County, Texas, are in the Kew Herbarium. 



' Botany of Voyage of H.M.S. "Herald" (1852-1857), p. 335. 



3 Garden and Forest, 1897, p. 123 ; figured on p. 125. The tree is also depicted in Card. Chron. 1892, xii. 646, fig. 

 100. According to a correspondent, the girth was 139 feet in 1886 ; 25 years previously it had been 136^ feet. Various and 

 conflicting measurements of this tree, taken by Exter, Baron von Karwinski, and Galeotti, in the early part of the nineteenth 

 century, are given by Zuccarini in Kay Society, Reports on Botany (1846), p. 19. The latest measurements of this tree I know 

 of are on a very fine photograph given me by the late Hon. Charles Ellis, as follows : 



Taxodium distichum at Mitla, near Oaxaca. Reported dimensions 



Girth at 4 feet from ground, 132 feet. 



n o ,, ,, ,, 154 

 higher up . . 198 ,, 



Height, 100 to 120 feet. 



(H. J. E.) 



