CUPRESSUS 449 



Numerous, varieties are in cultivation, of which the following are the more 

 important : 



Var. AUREA. Young shoots golden yellow. Perhaps more striking is 

 Var. CRIPPSII, coloured similarly, but of a paler shade ; very pleasing as a 

 small tree of dense, very elegant habit. Var. KETELEERI is of the same 

 colouring. 



Var. COMPACTA. Habit dwarf ; branches very short. Another dwarf 

 form is PYGM^EA (nana), a very low, rounded bush suitable for the rock 

 garden. 



Var. FILICOIDES. Habit dense ; branching very close, the ultimate 

 divisions short, much crowded, and not so flattened as in the type. 



Var. LYCOPODIOIDES. Habit dwarf; branching irregular, not strictly in 

 two rows, the ultimate branchlets much thicker, more four-sided, and less 

 compressed than in the type. 



Var. TETRAGONA AUREA. This has the branching of filicoides, but the 

 branchlets are thicker, more four-sided, and scarcely compressed. Young 

 shoots yellow. Dwarf and slow-growing. 



C. PISIFERA, Koch. SAWARA CYPRESS. 



(Retinispora pisifera, Siebold?) 



A tree 70 to 100, occasionally 120 to 130 ft. high, with a trunk 3 to 5 ft. 

 in diameter. Branches arranged in two opposite horizontally spreading rows ; 

 branchlets flat, the ultimate divisions about j'g- in. wide. Leaves of about 

 equal length, the lateral ones somewhat the larger (^ in. long), all with 

 sharp, slender, free points ; dark green above, green at the tips beneath, but 

 with a broad patch of glaucous bloom at the base of each. Cones brown, 

 about the size of a pea ; scales ten or twelve, hollowed towards the centre, 

 where is a minute projection. 



Native of Japan ; introduced along with vars. filifera, plumosa, and 

 squarrosa by J. G. Veitch in 1861. As a tree for gardens the typical 

 C. pisifera is inferior to C. obtusa, from which it is readily distinguished by 

 its sharply pointed leaves. It is more likely to be confused with some forms of 

 C. Lawsoniana, but the leaves of the American species are rarely so finely 

 pointed, and those of the lateral ranks, as in C. obtusa, are conspicuously 

 longer than the upper and lower ones. In habit C. pisifera is apt to be thin, 

 especially in poor soils, but this may be improved by an occasional clipping 

 over, in spring, more especially when in a small state. An occasional applica- 

 tion of manure water is also beneficial. 



There are four leading varieties of C. pisifera in gardens, the two first adult, 

 the two last juvenile : 



1. Var. AUREA. A variety of the adult type which originated in Messrs 

 Barren's nursery at Borrowash ; it has the whole of the young shoots golden 

 yellow. 



2. Var. FILIFERA (Retinispora filifera). A remarkably distinct form (adult), 

 in which the lateral branching is much reduced, so that the main branchlets 

 become elongated, terete, and cord-like ; the leaves also are larger. Inter- 

 mixed are short branchlets of the type. The tree is low and wide, often a 

 broadly pyramidal shrub only, its whole outer surface furnished with the slender 

 pendulous branchlets. Var. FILIFERA AUREA has the young growths golden. 



3. Var. PLUMOSA (Retinispora plumosa). A persistently juvenile form 

 (or rather " state ") of C. pisifera, not so large-growing, more pyramidal in 

 habit, and not so flatly but more plumosely branched ; the final subdivisions 

 decurved. It is most distinct, however, in the leaves, which are \ in. or more 



2 F 



