DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 235 



most exposed to inundation, are charged with conical pro- 

 tuberances, commonly from eighteen to twenty-four inches, 

 and sometimes , four or five feet in thickness ; these are 

 always hollow, smooth on the surface, and covered with a 

 reddish bark, like the roots, which they resemble also in the 

 softness of their wood ; they exhibit no sign of vegetation, 

 and I have never succeeded in obtaining shoots by wound- 

 ing their surface and covering them with the earth. No 

 cause can be assigned for their existence : they are peculiar 

 to the Cypress, and begin to appear when it is twenty or 

 twenty-five feet in height ; they are not made use of except 

 by the negroes for bee-hives." 



" The foliage is open, light, and of a fresh, agreeable 

 tint ; each leaf is four or five inches long, and consists of 

 two parallel rows of leaflets, upon a common stem. The 

 leaflets are small, fine, and somewhat arching, with the 

 convex side outwards. In the autumn, they change from 

 a light green to a dull red, and are shed soon after." 



" The Cypress blooms in Carolina about the first of 

 February. The male and female flowers are borne 

 separately, by the same tree ; the first in flexible pendulous 

 aments, and the second in bunches, scarcely apparent. 

 The cones are about as large as the thumb, hard, round, 

 of an uneven surface, and stored with small, irregular, 

 ligneous seeds, containing a cylindrical kernel ; they are 

 ripe in October, and retain their productive virtue for two 

 years."* 



Such is the account given of the Cypress in its native 

 soils. In the middle states it is planted only as an orna- 

 mental tree ; and while, in the South, its great abundance 



N. A. Sylva. ii. 332. 



