22 



Garden and Forest. 



[January 8, 1890. 



being drawn from the sand or ruptured the combined 

 Flukes present an enormous resistance. 



Ml 



HYPOTHETICAL 



CYPRESS 



• ■. \.W//M//> 



The above drawing I have made for the purpose of sim- 

 plifying the discussion. It shows a hypothetical Cypress with 

 two roots of the same length and diameter — one with knees, 

 the other without them. The superior strength of the stiffened 

 root would seem sufficiently evident ; but, with the view of 

 obtaining the judgment of a mind thoroughly trained in ques- 

 tions of this nature, I submitted the drawing to my friend, 

 Charles Macdonald, late Director of the American So- 

 ciety of Civil Engineers, whose eye has been accustomed to 

 estimating the value of strains in structures by an active expe- 

 rience of twenty-five years, and who has just finished the largest 

 drawbridge in America, at New London. Mr. Macdonald 

 agreed with me that the root B, which is trussed with the 

 knees C and C, would very largely exceed in capacity for 

 holding the tree firmly in yielding material the root A, which 

 is similar but destitute of knees. This greatly increased 

 security against destruction by storms is, I think, a sufficient 

 advantage to account for the existence and maintenance 

 of an organ that draws so slightly upon the vitality of the 

 plant. 



It is proper to record here another observation that may ex- 

 plain the existence of the elevated, narrow point which the knee 

 sometimes develops and which rises higher than the curved 

 growth that would be necessary to secure the maximum re- 

 sistance to compression and extension. The home of the 

 Cypress is in broad, level river-margins subject to periodic 

 overflow, where hundreds of square miles become covered 

 with a shallow bed of slowly moving water, or in basin-like 

 depressions, sometimes of vast extent, where from time to 

 time water rises above the level of the horizontal. roots. Then 

 these stake-like protuberances, rising into and through the 

 current formed by the drainage or by the winds, catch and hold 

 around the roots of the parent trees many thousand pounds 

 of " plant food " in the form of reeds and grass, or small 

 twigs among which dead leaves become entangled. The tree 

 that exclusively possesses this source of nutrition is at an ad- 

 vantage over all others in the neighborhood, and the higher 

 these attenuated "drift-catchers" rise in the stream, the more 

 drift will they arrest, for the highest stratum of water is richest 

 in (loat. The theory that some distinguished writers have 

 suggested that the knee is a factor in the aeration of the sap 

 and that the tree's death is prevented by such aeration taking 

 place in the upper portion of the knee during periods of high 

 water, would seem to need careful experimental confirma- 

 tion. Where nature forms an organ whose purpose is to 

 preserve the life of the individual, she takes special care to 

 adapt such organ to the function it is depended upon to per- 

 form. In this case the rough, dry bark of the knee offers a 

 most imperfect means of access for the oxygen or other gases 

 of the atmosphere to the interior vessels of the plant, and 

 instead of presenting broad surfaces of permeable membrane, 

 formed for transmitting elastic fluids, at its upper extremity 

 the protuberance becomes more narrow and presents less 

 surface as it rises, so that when during periods of high water 

 the life of the tree is most jeopardized, the life-saving organ 

 attains its minimum capacity. In the presence of this mani- 

 fest want of adaptation it also seems important for the accept- 

 ance of the aerating theory that some one should experiment- 

 ally show that the aerating organ of the Cypress really aerates 



to an extent sufficient to make it of material advantage to the 

 plant.* 



It was long ago observed that no knees are developed 

 when the tree grows in upland upon a firm bottom, in which 

 ordinary simple roots can obtain in the ordinary way the hold 

 necessary to resist overturning forces, and where there is no 

 stratum of water to transport food. So conservative is nature, 

 that she reverts to an original or adopts a simpler form of root 

 even in a single generation if the need for the more compli- 

 cated arrangement ceases to extist. 



Finally, I may perhaps be permitted to add an observation 

 regarding the roots of other trees that trench upon the same 

 soils affected by the Cypress and often take advantage of the 

 anchors it sets so boldly in treacherous bottoms. These trees 

 project their cable-like, flexible roots in every direction hori- 

 zontally, interlacing continually until a fabric is woven on the 

 surface of the soft earth like the tangled web of a gigantic bas- 

 ket. Out of this close wicker-work, firmly attached to it, and 

 dependent for their support upon its integrity, rise the tree 

 trunks. Thus slowly, and by a community of growth and ac- 

 tion, a structure is formed that supplies for each tree a 

 means of resisting the storms. Such communities of trees, 

 provided with ordinary roots, advance against and overcome 

 enemies where singly they would perish in the conflict. The 

 cyclone, the loose sand, the morass — these are the enemies they 

 contend with, as it were, in unbroken phalanx, shoulder to shoul- 

 der, their shields locked, their spears bristling against the foe ; 

 butthe graceful plumed Cypress, the knight-errant of the sylvan 

 host, bearing with him his trusty anchor— ^the emblem of Hope — 

 goes forth alone and defiant, afar from his fellows, scorning 

 the methods of his vassals, and planting himself boldly amid 

 a waste of waters, where no other tree dare venture, stands, 

 age after age, erect, isolated, but ever ready to do battle with 

 the elements. Twenty centuries of driving rain and snow and 

 fierce hurricane beat uponhis toweringfonn, and yet he stands 

 there, the stern, gray and solitary sentinel of the morass, cling- 

 ing to the quaking earth with the grasp of Hercules, to whom 

 men were building temples when his wardenship began. 

 New York, Jan. 2d. Robert H. Lambom. 



A Chart of Standard Colors. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest: 



Sir. — Having read Mr. Orcutt's plea (vol. ii., p. 622) for a 

 "complete nomenclature of colors for field use," permit me 

 to give a few of the reasons why such a work is probably im- 

 practicable — reasons which have been made clear to me 

 through practical experience, including the publication of a 

 work intended to supply this well-known want and subse- 

 quent experiments on a very extensive scale. A work that 

 would "show every color in nature " would, of course, in- 

 clude a much greater number of hues than are given in my 

 " Nomenclature of Colors" (186), and consequently must be 

 more expensive ; yet apparently the chief objection to my 

 book is that it is expensive — the cost is $4.00. in fact, the ex- 

 pense of publishing such a work lies almost wholly in repro- 

 ducing the colors, the question of accompanying text being, 

 relatively, hardly worth considering. Mr. Orcutt is mistaken, 

 however, when he says that in my book " only those shades 

 which occur in our native birds are shown," for possibly half 

 of the 186 colors cannot be found in any North American 

 bird, while probably there are extremely few seen in flowers 

 which are not to be found among them. 



There are only two known methods by which colors can be 

 represented in book or chart form — by chromo-lithography 

 and by hand-painting. The former is wholly inadequate for 

 the reason that it is limited to a comparatively small number 

 of hues, from which must be omitted nearly all the pure 

 colors and delicate tints. The second, while more expensive, 

 is adequate and practicable, the principal difficulty being to 

 secure absolute uniformity in different copies and editions, 

 and this is a prime requisite, since any variation in this re- 

 spect would render such a work worse than useless. 



I have before me at this moment, as the result of my ex- 

 periments, a collection of 411 more or less different colors, 



*Tlie "Chemical Theory " of the Cypress knee seems to be but a revival of the 

 elaborate hypothesis of Dickinson and Brown, published in their memoir on T. 

 distichum in the American Journal of Science and Arts, in January, 1848. These 

 industrious observers discard the " Mechanical Theory " entirely, and consider 

 both (he spongy knees and, strangely enough, even the spreading base of the tree, 

 as organs of communication with the air, forgetful that the successful and most 

 celebrated lighthouse in the world — the Eddystonc — was avowedly modeled after a 

 similar spreading tree-base for the purpose of withstanding the storm shocks of 

 the English Channel. By means of a curious drawing they show how the swollen 

 portions of the base rise "to the top of the highest water level, which must, in 

 some instances, attain an elevation of at least twenty-five feet;" thus continuing 

 the functions and the structure of the knees, " up" the body of the tree to the 

 atmosphere." 



