274 TREES 



covered with a growth of these cypresses whose trunks are 

 strangely swollen at the base, and often hollow. The flar- 

 ing buttresses are prolonged into the main roots, which 

 form humps that rise out of the water at some distance 

 from the tree. These "cypress knees" are not yet ex- 

 plained, though authorities suspect that they have some- 

 thing to do with the aeration of the root system. 



Inundated nine or ten months of the year, these cy- 

 press swamps are often dry the remaining time, and it is a 

 surprise to Southerners to find these trees comfortable and 

 beautiful in Northern parks. Cleveland and New York 

 parks have splendid examples. 



The leaves of the bald cypress are of two types. They 

 are scale-like only on stems that bear the globular cones. 

 On other shoots they form a flat spray, each leaf one haK to 

 three fourths of an inch long, pea-green in the Southern 

 swamps, bright yellow-green on both sides in dry ground, 

 turning orange-brown before they fall. The twigs that 

 bear these two-ranked leaves are also deciduous, a unique 

 distinction of this genus. 



Cypress wood is soft, light brown, durable, and easily 

 worked. Quantities of it are shipped north and used in the 

 manufacture of doors and interior finishing of houses, for 

 fencing, railroad ties, cooperage, and shingles. 



THE JUNIPERS 



The sign by which the junipers are most easily distin- 

 guished from other evergreens, is the juicy berries instead of 

 cones. In some species these are red, but they are mostly 

 blue or blue-black. Before they mature it is easy to see 



