DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 205 



seed,) begin to blossom, plants reared from them by cuttings 

 or grafts, will of course produce blossoms and fruit much 

 more speedily than when reared from the nut. 



The American Cypress Tree. Taxodium. 

 Nat. Ord. Coniferse. Lin. Syst. Moncecia, Monadelphia. 



The Southern or Deciduous cypress, {Taxodium disti- 

 chiim,*) is one of the most majestic, useful, and beautiful trees 

 of the southern part of North America. Naturally, it is not 

 found growing north of Maryland, or the south part of Dela- 

 ware, but below that boundary it becomes extremely multi- 

 plied. The low grounds and alluvial soils subject to inunda- 

 tions, are constantly covered with this tree; and on the banks 

 of the Mississippi, and other great western rivers for more than 

 600 miles from its mouth, those vast marshes caused by the 

 periodical bursting and overflowing of their banks, are filled 

 with huge and almost endless growths of this tree, called 

 Cypress swamps. Beyond the boundaries of the United 

 States, its geographical range extends to Mexico ; and Mi- 

 chaux estimates that it is found more or less abundantly, 

 over a range of country more than 3000 miles in extent. 



" In the swamps of the southern states and the Floridas, 

 on whose deep miry soil a new layer of vegetable mould is 

 deposited every year by the floods, the Cypress attains its ut- 

 most development. The largest stocks are 120 feet in height, 

 and from 2.5 to 40 feet in circumference, above the conical base, 

 which at the surface of the earth is always three or four times 

 as large as the continued diameter of the trunk ; in felling 

 them, the negroes are obliged to raise themselves upon scaf- 



* Cupressus disticha. 



