119. TAXODIUM DISTICHUM CYPRESS. 45 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood heavy, bard, strong, compact, rather 

 coarse-grained, medullary rays not numerous and of rather small size, 

 annual rings marked by large open ducts; of a light mottled pinkish- 

 brown color with lighter sap-wood. Specific Gravity, 0.2744; Percentage 

 of Ash f 0. 51; Relative Approximate Fuel Value, 0.7207; Coefficient of 

 Elasticity, 122657; Modulus of Rupture, 1052; Resistance to Longitudinal 

 Pressure, 501; Resistance to Indentation, 198; Weight of a Cubic Foot in 

 Pounds, 45.14. 



USES. Wood used for fuel and doubtless to some extent for furniture, 

 interior finishing, etc., though not considered as valuable a wood as that 

 of some of the other oaks. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES are not claimed of this species, though like 

 the other oaks it possesses astringent bark. 



GTMXOSPERM^l. 



Flowering, exogenous plant with leaves chiefly parallel-veined and cotyledons fre- 

 quently more than two. Flowers diclinous and very incomplete; pistil represented 

 by an open scale or leaf, or altogether wanting, with ovules naked, fertilized by 

 direct contact with the pollen, and seeds at maturity naked without a true pericarp. 



ORDER CONIFERE, PINE FAMILY. 



Leaves mostly awl-shaped or needle-shaped, evergreen, entire and parallel -veined. 

 Flowers monoecious, or rarely dioecious, in catkins or cones, destitute of both calyx 

 and corolla; stamens one or several (usually united); ovary, style and stigma want- 

 ing; ovules one or several at the base of a scale, which serves as a carpel, or on an 

 open disk. Fruit a cone, woody and with distinct scales, or somewhat berry-like, and 

 with fieshy coherent scales, seeds orthotopous, embryo in the axis of the albumen. 



Trees or shrubs with a resinous juice. 



GENUS TAXODIUM. RICHARD. 



Leaves alternate, linear, sessile, slender, arranged in delicate flat 2-ranked 

 sprays, light green, deciduous, as also a part of the slender brauchlets; leaf-buds not 

 scaly. Flowers monoecious, the sterile in terminal panicled spikes; stamens few 

 with scale-like shield-shaped filaments bearing 2-5 anther cells; fertile flowers in 

 small, ovoid, scaly catkins, the scales bractless and with a pair of ovules at the base 

 of each scale. Fruit a globular closed cone, about 1 in. or less in diameter, com- 

 posed of the spirally arranged scales which are now woody, much thickened, angular 

 and somewhat shield-shaped, with two-angled seeds at the base of each scale. 



(Name derived from the Greek ra?o5, a yew, and e'ldot, resemblance.) 



119. TAXODIUM DISTICHUM, RICHARD. 

 BALD CYPRESS, BLACK CYPRESS, RED CYPRESS, WHITE CYPRESS. 



Ger., Zweizeliche Eibencypresse ; Fr., Cypres afeuille; Sp., Cipres 



deshojado. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS are incorporated in the above generic description. 

 (The specific name distichum. is from the Greek di't, twice or double and dn'xo?, 

 rank, referring to the 2-ranked arrangement of the leaves.) 



A large tree sometimes attaining the hight of 150 ft. (46 m.) with a 

 trunk 10 or 12 ft. (3 m.) in diameter, with fibrous brownish bark marked 



