THE BALD CYPRESS 



THE Bald Cypress is likely to be familiar to anyone who has lived in the great 

 Atlantic Coast region between Delaware on the north and east and Texas on the 

 south and west. For the Cypress swamps are a characteristic feature of this 

 great region, and the trees which give the swamps their name are so distinctive that they 

 are likely to attract the notice of every observer. The distinctive features of the trees are 

 found in their ability to grow in submerged soil, in their curious buttressed bases with 

 fluted outlines, in the strange "knees" sent up above the water by the great horizontal 

 roots, in the small leaves arising from short branches the leaves not only being deciduous 

 themselves but generally taking with them when they fall the short branches on which 

 they are borne and in the interesting round and roughened cones. Of all these charac- 

 teristics perhaps the "knees" are the most fascinating to the student: these knees rise 

 several feet above the water by the abrupt upward bending of the main roots. While the 

 botanists are not agreed as to the precise function of these knees, they seem to incline to 

 the opinion that they have to do with an effort to get air, such knees being especially 

 developed when the roots are under water. A recent observer states that in one case he 

 saw a tree whose roots had been freed from earth by floods and that the tips were against 

 solid rock so that the knees were formed by buckling upward as the tips grew. 



During recent years the cypress swamps have become of great value as sources of 

 lumber, the light soft wood being useful for many purposes, especially where resistance to 

 moisture is necessary. The old trees are generally ragged and unsymmetrical, but young 

 trees are of a beautiful pyramidal symmetry that makes them very desirable for orna- 

 mental planting. They thrive best in rather moist soil, but will grow in drier situations. 

 There is one native variety with needle-shaped leaves to which the name imbricaria has 

 been given ; and there are a number of horticultural varieties that are available for orna- 

 mental planting. The most popular of these is a weeping form. 



The panicles of pollen-bearing flowers are shown in the middle picture of the plate. 

 They mature in early spring, becoming of a purplish color and producing enormous quanti- 

 ties of pollen, which is wafted through the air to fertilize the small seed-bearing flowers 

 on the ends of the twigs. 



The Bald Cypress commonly occurs throughout most of the Southern States, 

 extending northward to Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and being hardy when planted as far 

 north as New England. 



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