24-84 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART 111. 



no signs of vegetation, and that he has never succeeded in obtaining shoots 

 from them by wounding the surface, and covering them with earth. These 

 facts are confirmed by Dupratz, the author of Voyage a la Louisiane, who 

 savs that he has seen protuberances which had grown up from the roots of 

 deciduous cypresses after they had been cut down, in the form of a sugar-loaf, 

 to the height of 10ft., being a fourth part as broad as they were high, and 

 without having ever produced either a root or a shoot. Bosc, who mentions 

 this on Dupratz's authority, doubts the accuracy of his observation, and says 

 that he never saw these protuberances of more than 1 ft. in height. Flint, 

 in his Geography and History of the Western States, mentions these " curiously- 

 shaped knobs," which, he says, are, in America, commonly called " cypress 

 knees ; " while the hollow base of the trunk is called " the tree's buttock." 

 " The cypress," he says, " loves the deepest, most gloomy, inaccessible, and 

 inundated swamps ; and seems to flourish where water covers its roots more 

 than half the year. When the water rises from 8 ft. to 10ft. from the over- 

 flow of the rivers, the apex of the tree's buttock is just on a level with the 

 surface of the water. It is then, in many places, that they cut it. The 

 negroes surround the tree in periogues, and thus get at the tree above the 

 large and broad buttock, and fell it with comparative ease. They cut off the 

 straight shaft as suits their purpose, and float it to a raft, or the nearest high 

 grounds." (Geog. and Hist., &c., vol. i. p. 62.) The knees are produced abun- 

 dantly by the large trees at Syon and Whitton, where they rise upwards of 1 ft. 

 above the surface of the soil ; and more than double that height from the roots 

 under water, in the case of trees growing by the sides of lakes at these places. 

 These protuberances are shown in the plate of the full-grown tree of this 

 species in our last Volume. The tree is of comparatively slow growth in 

 the climate of London ; and the fronds, or points of the shoots, are frequently 

 killed back by early frosts. Nevertheless, it attains the height, in moist 

 soils, of 5ft. or 6 ft. in 6 or 8 years, and of 15 ft. in 12 or 15 years ; and, in 

 40 or 50 years, it is 40 ft. or 50 ft. in height. The largest tree in the envi- 

 rons of London is at Whitton, where, in 1834, it was 81 ft. high, with a trunk 

 5 ft. in diameter at 2 ft. from the ground. There are trees nearly 70 ft. high at 

 Syon ; and trees at Bagshot, St. Ann's Hill, and Purser's Cross which have 

 borne male blossoms and cones. The first tree on record which bore cones 

 in England was one at Wimbledon, before 1752. (See History.) The tree 

 thrives well in Scotland, and also in the climate of Paris, and in central 

 Germany. 



Geography. The deciduous cypress is found on the banks of the Indian River, 

 a small stream that waters part of Delaware, in lat. 38 50', and which may be 

 considered as its northern boundary. Hence, proceeding south ward, it becomes 

 more abundant in the swamps ; but, in Maryland and Virginia, it is confined 

 to the view of the sea, where the winter is milder, and the summer more 

 intense. Beyond Norfolk, its limits coincide exactly with those of the pine 

 barrens ; and, in the Carolinas and Georgia, it occupies a great part of the 

 swamps, which border the rivers after they have left the mountains, and 

 entered the low lands. In East Florida, the soil is, in general, more uni- 

 form ; and here the long-leaved pine (P. australis) and deciduous cypress 

 are very abundant ; the one on the low grounds, and the other on the 

 uplands. The Mississippi, from its mouth to the river of the Arkansas, a 

 distance (following its windings) of more than 600 miles, is bordered with 

 marshes, which, at the annual overflowing of this mighty stream, form a 

 vast expanse of waters. In Louisiana, those parts of the marshes where 

 the deciduous cypress grows almost alone are called cyprieres or cypress 

 swamps, as those in which it is mingled with the white cedar are called cedar 

 swamps, and they sometimes occupy thousands of acres. In the Floridas, 

 these swamps are contiguous to the immeasurable tracts covered with pines, 

 and called pine barrens ; or with tall rank grass, and called savannahs. In 

 the midst of the pine forests and savannahs is seen, here and there, a bog, 

 or a plash of water, filled with deciduous cypresses, the squalid appearance of 



