62 



ECONOMIC BOTANY OF ALABAMA 



Fig. 13. Taxodimii distichiiiii ( wilh a few 

 specimens of Nyssa uniflora, etc.) in swamp of 

 Big Creek, about four miles west of North- 

 port, Tuscaloosa County, March 4, 1913. 



and England in the Old World. Several horticultural varieties 

 have heen named. Cultivated trees are nearly always narrowly 

 conical in outline, like young trees in nature, probably because few 

 of them are old enough yet to be flat-topped. 



On account of its durability the wood is used especially for 

 piles, telegraph poles, crossties, water pipes, tanks, vats, tubs, 

 buckets, freezers, churns, and shingles. Tanks and pipes made of 

 it for use in chemical industries are said to resist the action of acids 

 and alkalies better than almost any other common wood. By the 

 early settlers large cypress logs were carved into boats, troughs, 

 washtubs, and the hollow"knees" used for buckets, flower-vases, 

 and the like. Around New Orleans the palings of many old fences 



