The Cypresses 



cooperage, fencing and railroad ties. Planted as an ornamental 

 tree in Northern States and in Europe. 



Familiar to the traveller through our Eastern and South- 

 ern seaboard regions are the cypress swamps, dismal, but pic- 

 turesque withal, and exhibiting characteristics that set this tree 

 quite apart from others. A conifer is ordinarily an evergreen 

 tree. This one establishes its family claims by the brave array of 

 button-like cones it ripens every autumn. But it is deciduous, 

 shedding not only its yew-like leaves, but, surprisingly, most of 

 the little twigs also that bear the leaves. So the winter finds the 

 trees bare and dead looking, the tall, corrugated trunks of old ones 

 often supporting heads as broad as the height, and hopelessly 

 unsymmetrical. In the soft muck of deep swamps the trees 

 spread out abruptly at the base into flying buttresses, each becom- 

 ing hollow in course of time, as the base of the trunk is long before. 

 Out on all sides stretch long, thick roots whose branches go down 

 and anchor the tree, while the main ones seem designed to balance 

 it on its uncertain foundation. The "knees" that rise up at inter- 

 vals from the main roots and are distinguished from stumps by 

 their smooth, conical shapes, are still a physiological puzzle. 

 Many people believe that they gather air for the submerged root 

 system. Others declare that they strengthen it. The cypresses 

 keep their secrets from the prying investigator, and the solemn 

 cormorants that build in the treetops will never tell. 



I shall not forget an excursion on foot into one of the large 

 bald cypress swamps of southern Florida in May. The dangerous 

 part of the jaunt was the passage forced through a jungle of young 

 pines, palmettoes and scrubby live oaks interlaced with wiry vines 

 and creepers. Here rattlesnakes hide, and show fight when dis- 

 turbed. Emerging at length into comparatively open timber, 

 we stood surrounded by young cypresses with pale grey trunks, 

 smooth, slender, and flaring widely at the bases. Among the 

 trunks were stum.ps, and also knees, the latter smooth, as if the 

 fibres went up one side and on down the other. Overhead was a 

 feathery canopy of pale sage-green leaves. On rugged old trunks 

 air plants found ample roothold. Orchids of sorts I had admired 

 afar off in florists' windows held out great cataracts of bloom which 

 were ours for the plucking. Vivid amaryllis flowers were similarly 

 growing out of the trunks of these trees, with delicate ferns to 

 keep them company. Under foot, the dry, sandy soil bore a crop 



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