72 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



of the branch or irregularly scattered along it for several inches, nearly globose or 

 obovate, rugose, about 1' in diameter, the scales generally destitute of tips ; seeds 

 with wings nearly ' long and ^' wide. 



A tree, with a tall lobed gradually tapering trunk, rarely 12 and generally 4 Q -5 

 in diameter above the abruptly enlarged strongly buttressed usually hollow base, 

 occasionally 150 tall, in youth pyramidal, with slender branches often becoming 

 elongated and slightly pendulous, in old age spreading out into a broad low rounded 

 crown often 100 across, and slender branchlets light green when they first appear, 

 light red-brown and rather lustrous during their first winter, becoming darker the 

 following year, deciduous lateral branchlets 3' -4' long, spreading at right angles to 

 the branch, or in the form with acicular leaves pendulous or erect and often 6' long. 

 Bark 1/-2' thick, light cinnamon-red and divided by shallow fissures into broad flat 

 ridges separating on the surface into long thin closely appressed fibrous scales. Wood 

 light, soft, not strong, easily worked, light or dark brown, sometimes nearly black; 

 largely used for construction, in cooperage, railwa.y-ties, posts, and fences. 



Distribution. River swamps usually submerged during several months of the 

 year, low wet banks of streams, and the wet depressions of Pine-barrens from south- 

 ern Delaware southward near the coast to the shores of Mosquito Inlet and Cape 

 Romano, Florida, and through the Gulf coast region to the valley of Devil River, 

 Texas, through Louisiana and Arkansas to southeastern Missouri, and through west- 

 ern Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky to southern Illinois and Indiana; most 

 common and of its largest size in the south Atlantic and Gulf states, often cover- 

 ing with nearly pure forests great river swamps. From South Carolina to western 

 Florida and southern Alabama the form with acicular leaves ( Taxodium distichum, 

 var. imbricarium, Sarg.) is not rare as a small tree in Pine-barren ponds. 



Often cultivated, especially the var. imbricarium, AS an ornamental tree in the north- 

 ern United States, and in the countries of temperate Europe. 



9. LIBOCEDRUS, Endl. 



Tall resinous aromatic trees, with scaly bark, spreading branches, flattened branch- 

 lets disposed in one horizontal plane and forming an open 2-ranked spray and often 

 ultimately deciduous, straight-grained durable fragrant wood, and naked buds. Leaves 

 scale-like, in 4 ranks, on leading shoots nearly equally decussate, closely compressed 

 or spreading, dying and becoming woody before falling, on lateral flattened branch- 

 lets much compressed, conspicuously keeled, and nearly covering those of the other 

 ranks ; on seedling plants linear-lanceolate and spreading. Flowers monoecious, solitary, 

 terminal, the two sexes on different branchlets; staminate oblong, with 12-16 decus- 

 sate filaments dilated into broad connectives usually bearing 4 subglobose anther-cells; 

 pistillate oblong, subtended at the base by several pairs of leaf-like scales slightly 

 enlarged and persistent under the fruit, composed of 6 acuminate short-pointed scales, 

 those of the upper and middle ranks much larger than those of the lower rank, ovate 

 or oblong, fertile and bearing at the base of a minute accrescent ovuliferous scale 2 

 erect ovules. Fruit an oblong cone maturing in one season, with subcoriaceous scales 

 marked at the apex by the free thickened mucronulate border of the enlarged flower- 

 scales, those of the lowest pair ovate, thin, reflexed, much shorter than the oblong 

 thicker scales of the second pair widely spreading at maturity; those of the third 

 pair confluent into an erect partition. Seeds in pairs, erect on the base of the scale; 

 seed-coat membranaceous, of 2 layers, produced into thin unequal lateral wings, one 



