PlNACEAE. 



TAXODIUM. Bald Cypress. 

 (Family Pinaceae). 



Percurrent, somewhat shredding- 

 barked trees, when large often 

 buttressed, and in very wet places 

 surrounded by large conical 

 "knees" developed from the roots: 

 deciduous. Twigs slender: pith 

 minute, brown, roundish, rather 

 spongy. Buds sessile, minute, 

 subglobose, with few scales, com- 

 monly indistinct and very fre- 

 quently represented by round 

 scars from which transient foliage- 

 sprays of the season have fallen, 

 solitary unless developing into 

 flower-clusters. Leaf and stipule- 

 scars lacking, the buds subtended 

 by minute scales or their vestiges. 

 Fruit, when persistent, in the form 

 of small ellipsoid cones with 

 thickened scales. 



The conical form of the bald 



cypress is very different in appearance from the open-topped 

 tree of cypress swamps; but young trees about the borders 

 of the swamps are usually of this form. The very high knees 

 of old trees in some localities correspond to a former high- 

 water level. An interesting account of the tree in its 

 various forms, by Wilson, is to be found in the first volume 

 of Biological Lectures of the Marine Biological Laboratory 

 at Wood's Hole. 



The Montezuma cypress of Mexico is evergreen through 

 persistence of its foliage-shoots. 



With flat open top. T. distichum. 



Conical: the usual cultivated form. T. distichum pyramidatum. 



