60 FAMILIAR TREES 



its scales become corky externally and woody within, 

 and separate to allow the seeds to drop out. 



The wood of the Cypress is hard, remarkably fine 

 and close in grain, very durable, of a beautiful 

 reddish brown colour, and resinously fragrant. The 

 evergreen character of the tree, and perhaps its flame- 

 like, monumental outline, the durability of its timber, 

 and its wholesomely balsamic odour, have no doubt 

 jointly contributed to that symbolism which Spenser 

 summed up by speaking of it as " the Cypresse 

 funerall." As Horace says, whatever was thought 

 worthy to be handed down to the most remote 

 posterity was by the ancients enclosed either in 

 Cypress or in Cedar wood. The Gopher wood of 

 which the Ark was constructed is supposed by some 

 to have been Cypress ; Herodotus tells us that the 

 Egyptians used Cypress-wood for their mummy-cases ; 

 Thucydides mentions that it was specially reserved to 

 contain the ashes of those Greeks who died for their 

 country ; and Plato directed that his code of laws 

 should be engraved on Cypress-wood, as being more 

 durable than brass. Theophrastus states that the 

 tree grew wild in the island of Crete, on snow-covered 

 mountains, and in Cyprus ; and that it would not 

 grow in too warm a situation. He recommends those 

 who wish to grow it successfully to obtain some of its 

 native soil from Cyprus ; and saj^s further that it 

 was dedicated to Pluto because, when cut down, it, 

 like most other Conifers, never throws up suckers. 

 This may perhaps be connected with the custom of 

 burying branches of Cypress with the dead, though 

 more probably this, like the modern practice of the 



