206 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



folds five or six feet from the ground. The roots of the larg- 

 est stocks, particularly of such as are most exposed to inun- 

 dation, are charged with conical protuberances, commonly 

 from eighteen to twenty-four inches, and sometimes lour 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 wounding their surface, and covering 

 them with earth. No cause can be assigned for their exis- 

 tence : 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 par- 

 allel rows of leaflets, upon a common stem. The leaflets are 

 small, fine, and somewhat arching, with the convex side out- 

 wards. 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 Febru- 

 ary. 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 cy- 

 lindrical 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 ornamental tree; 

 and while in the south, its great abundance causes it to be 



* N. A. Svlva, II, 332. 



