Chinese Arborvitae 



The Chinese arborvitae (Thuya orientalis) has a dwarf habit and slow 

 growth. It is almost globular in outline with bright green foliage which be- 

 comes golden or bronze tinted during the winter. A number of other varie- 

 gated forms of arborvitae are handled by nurserymen, all of which have high 

 decorative value. 



THUYOPSIS 



Japanese arborvitae (Thuyopsis dolobrata) is closely related to the genus 

 Thuya, from which it is chiefly distinguished by Its" greater breadth and bold- 

 ness of foliage, and by the white splashes on the under side of the leaves. In 

 Japan it grows in moist, dense forests, under the shade of other trees. It is a 

 beautiful conifer of pyramidal shape with the branchlets arranged in fan 

 shape, much flattened and clothed with scale-like, glossy green foliage. It 

 thrives best in a sheltered position in moist loamy soil, and is well adapted as 

 a single specimen on a lawn. It grows better from cuttings than from seed. 



CUPRESSUS 



The cypress (Cupressus) was much admired by the ancients, and it was 

 probably because of its reputation that the Island of Cyprus was so named. 

 There is a myth to the effect that a youth named Cuparissos, a companion of 

 Apollo, the Grecian divinity, was turned into a cypress tree upon his death, 

 and that this tree was given the special function of shading the graves of those 

 who have been greatly beloved in life. Mythology relates that the goddess 

 Venus never appeared in the annual processions of Pan-Athenaic fame with- 

 out a cypress bough made manifest in her retinue, a symbol expressive of her 

 grief upon the death of Adonis. 



Horace writes that whatever was thought worthy to be handed down 

 to posterity by the ancients was enclosed in cypress or cedar wood. The 

 Biblical ark, "pitched within and without," was made of gopher wood, which is 

 supposed to have been that of the Italian cypress. Herodotus tells us that the 

 Egyptians used cypress for their mummy cases. Plato directed that his code 

 of laws should be engraved on cypress wood, as being more durable than 

 brass. 



The customs and languages of the ages have made cypress a symbol of 

 bodily death and spiritual immortality. Its evergreen character, monumental 



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