524 Select Plants for Industrial Culture and 



Taxodium distichum, Richard.* 



Virginian Swamp- or Bald-Cypress. In swampy places of 

 Eastern North-America, extending from 38 to 47 north latitude. 

 Thought to attain occasionally an age of 2,000 years ; wood-rings 

 to the number of about 4,000 have been counted, but perhaps these 

 not all fully annual. A valuable tree, 100 feet high or more, 

 sometimes with a stem circumference of 40 feet above the conical 

 base ; of rapid growth ; foliage deciduous, like that of the Larch 

 and Ginkgo. Important as antimalarian for wet fever-regions. 

 It is found fossil in the miocene formation of many parts of Europe. 

 The wood is fine-grained, hard, strong, light, elastic and very 

 durable ; splits well ; it is much used for shingles, rails, cabinet- 

 work and planks ; it is almost indestructible in water. The tree 

 requires a good soil, a well-sheltered site, with much moisture but 

 also good drainage [Lawson]. It yields a superior kind of turpen- 

 tine, and thus also much oil on distillation. Useful for avenues on 

 swampy margins of lakes or river-banks. Dr. Porcher says, " This 

 tree, lifting its giant-form above the others, gives a striking feature 

 to many of the swamps of Carolina and Georgia ; they seem like 

 watch-towers for the feathered race." 



Taxodium nmcronatum, Tenore. 



The famed Montezuma-Cypress of Mexico; to 150 feet high; 

 a tree near Oaxaca has a circumference of 140 feet, dilating at the 

 base to 200 feet [Zuccarini]. Represented in the " Gardeners' 

 Chronicle." 1892, p. 646. The age must be prodigious, like that of 

 the Cypress of Attisca [Dr. Masters], It forms extensive forests 

 between Chapultepec and Tescuco. It loves current waters with 

 rocky bottom. 



Taxus baccata, Linn. 



Yew. Europe, North-Africa and Asia, in the Himalayas up to 

 11,000 feet elevation. Likes calcareous soil. In Norway it extends 

 northward to lat. 67 30' (indigenous) ; Professor Schuebeler found 

 it to attain still a height of 45 feet and a circumference of 4 feet in 

 lat. 59 26'. Generally a shrub, finally a tree as many as 100 feet 

 high ; it furnishes a yellow or brown wood, which is exceedingly 

 tough, elastic and durable, and much esteemed by turners ; one of the 

 best of all woods for bows. Simmonds observed, that " a post of 

 yew will outlast a post of iron." Much valued also for pumps, 



. piles and water-pipes, as more lasting than any other wood in trade ; 

 also for particular musical instruments, the strongest axletrees and 

 select implements. The tree is of very slow growth, but attains a 

 great age, perhaps three thousand years ; wood-rings to the extent of 

 2,880 have been counted. In the " Garden " it is stated, that a yew, 

 still existing at the Fountain- Abbey in Yorkshire, was already in 

 1132 a large tree, when this monastery was founded. A Taxus at 

 Tisbury, in Dorsetshire, had a stem-circumference of 37 feet ; one 



