43Q 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 506. 



is distributed from south-eastern Europe and the Levant 

 along the Himalayas to China. The seventeen or eighteen 

 species now recognized can be conveniently grouped into 

 two sections — Eucupressus, distinguished by its four-sided 

 branchlets, denticulate leaves, and large fruit maturing at 

 the end of the second season, with numerous seeds in 

 several rows under each scale ; and Chama?cyparis, distin- 

 guished by flattened, often deciduous branchlets, entire 

 leaves, and small fruit maturing at the end of the first 

 season, with from one to four seeds under each scale. 

 The genus has made important contributions to gardens, 

 and nearly all its members are handsome and fast-growing 

 trees. To Eucupressus belong the Monterey Cypress (C. 

 macrocarpa), one of the most picturesque trees of the 

 American forests and the most universally planted coni- 

 fer in our Pacific states, C. sempervirens, in its fastigiate 

 form, a chief ornament of gardens in the countries border- 

 ing the Mediterranean, the so-called Cedar of Goa (C. 

 Lusitanica), a native of India and for more than two hun- 

 dred and fifty years an inhabitant of Portugal, where it has 

 become naturalized, and the Funereal Cypress of the 

 Chinese (C. funebris), a frequent inhabitant of temple gar- 

 dens and a living monument over many Chinese graves. 

 No Eucupressus, however, is hardy in our northern gar- 

 dens, and in these notes only species of Chama°cyparis 

 need be considered. These all grow comparatively near 

 the sea in Atlantic and Pacific North America and in Japan, 

 only five species being known. 



The type of this section, Cupressus thyoides, is the 

 familiar White Cedar of the eastern states, where it grows 

 in cold swamps on the Atlantic and Gulf coast plain, 

 usually immersed during several months of the year, from 

 southern Maine to northern Florida and the valley of Pearl 

 River, Mississippi, covering them at the north with pure 

 forests of wide extent, and at the south mingling with the 

 Bald Cypress and other moisture-loving species. It is a 

 slender pyramidal fragrant tree often seventy or eighty 

 feet tall, with a stem rarely more than two feet in diameter, 

 thin, spreading branches clothed with open flat fan-shaped 

 spray, and dark, dull blue-green foliage, becoming rusty 

 brown at the north in winter when exposed to the sun. 

 The White Cedar, which is rarely cultivated in our gardens 

 for the reason, perhaps, that it is a common native tree, is, 

 of course, perfectly hardy ; and in thoroughly drained or 

 in undrained soil grows rapidly into a slender, shapely, 

 graceful open pyramid. European nurserymen propagate 

 several forms of this tree with glaucous and with yellow- 

 marked foliage, and others with fastigiate and pendulous 

 branches. Cupressus thyoides Hoveyii is a slender form 

 with short ultimate branchlets forming dense terminal tufts. 

 Cupressus thyoides nana is a dwarf compact form with 

 glaucous foliage. The small dense pyramidal bush with 

 erectly spreading glaucous leaves, which turn bronze color 

 or purplish brown during the winter, is now usually sup- 

 posed to be a monstrous form of the White Cedar ; its 

 origin, however, is unknown, and by different authors it 

 has been called a Cupressus, a Juniperus. a Retinospora, a 

 Frenela and a Widdringtonia. This curious little plant, 

 which possesses little beauty, was much used a few years 

 ago in European gardens and is frequently seen in Ameri- 

 can collections, although it is not always perfectly hardy 

 in the neighborhood of Boston. 



Two species of Chama?cyparis (Cupressus Nootkatensis 

 and C. Lawsoniana) inhabit Pacific North America and are 

 among the noblest and most valuable trees of this conti- 

 nent. The more northern of the two, C. Nootkatensis, the 

 Sitka or Yellow Cedar, is a common inhabitant of south- 

 eastern Alaska, where it is scattered through the forests of 

 Spruces and Hemlocks which cover the coast mountains, 

 and ranges southward through western British Columbia 

 and Washington to the valley of the Santiam River, in 

 Oregon. It is the most valuable timber-tree of Alaska, 

 where it sometimes grows to the height of one hundred 

 and twenty feet, with a trunk six feet in diameter. Its light, 

 close-grained pale yellow wood has no superior in our 



forests as material for the cabinetmaker, and in its lasting 

 quality when put into the ground. The slender branches 

 of the Yellow Cedar, sweeping outward and upward in long 

 curves and furnished with long, gracefully drooping frond- 

 like bright yellow-green branchlets, make this tree lovely 

 in its native forests ; but to develop all its beauties it 

 requires the humid climate of the north-west coast, and in 

 drier regions displays little of the grace and vigor which 

 make it one of the handsomest of our conifers. In gardens, 

 both in the United States and Europe, the Yellow Cedar 

 is usually known as Thuiopsis borealis, and is still gen- 

 erally seen only in juvenile form with dense pyramidal 

 habit and blue-green foliage. It appears to be quite hardy 

 from New York southward, but east of Cape Cod, although 

 it can often be kept alive for some time, it usually suc- 

 cumbs at the end of a few years to the hardships of its 

 surroundings, and is never really satisfactory in this part 

 of the country. Cupressus Nootkatensis is no exception 

 to the rule, that the plants of this group show a marked 

 tendency to seminal variation, and European nurserymen 

 propagate a number of more or less well-marked forms 

 with variegated and glaucous foliage and with pendulous 

 or abbreviated branches. None of them, however, has 

 much morphological interest or horticultural value. 



The largest of all the Cypress tribe and one of the great 

 timber-trees of the world, Cupressus Lawsoniana, is now a 

 familiar ornament in the parks and gardens of all temperate 

 countries, although it is less than fifty years since its dis- 

 covery. Its great size, for specimens two hundred feet in 

 height, with trunks ten or twelve feet in diameter, are not 

 rare, the remarkable thickness of its deeply lobed bark, 

 surpassing in this all other members of the Cypress tribe, its 

 graceful beauty in youth, with its delicate feathery branches 

 and drooping leading shoots, and the nobility of its port at 

 maturity, give exceptional interest to this tree. Restricted 

 in distribution to a narrow strip of the southern Oregon and 

 northern California coast, with outlying stations on thehead- 

 watersoftheSacramento River, Lawson'sCypress has shown 

 itself capable of supporting very different conditions from 

 those in which it flourishes naturally ; and from New York 

 southward it may be seen in a fairly vigorous condition, 

 although it never, perhaps, grows as luxuriantly in the 

 Atlantic states as in western Europe. In New England, 

 unfortunately, it merely survives in sheltered positions, and 

 we shall have to give up the idea of using this tree here in 

 general planting. The tendency of Lawson's Cypress to 

 seminal variation is remarkable, and more than sixty varie- 

 ties have been named by European nurserymen. One of 

 the most distinct of them, Cupressus Lawsoniana erecta 

 viridis, is a strictly pyramidal plant with bright green 

 foliage, which appeared many years ago in the Knapp Hill 

 Nursery, at Woking, in England, and is one of the best of 

 the pyramidal conifers. Other seminal forms are distin- 

 guished by pendulous branches, by dwarf habit and by 

 more or less variegated or abnormally colored foliage, but 

 in many of these varieties the divergence from the type is 

 so slight that their names are not worth preserving. Named 

 in honor of Sir Charles Lavvson, of Edinburgh, the distin- 

 guished rural economist and for many years the head of 

 the nursery firm of Peter Lawson & Son, this tree is univer- 

 sally known in the forests of Oregon and the lumber-yards 

 of San Francisco as the Port Orford Cedar, from the harbor 

 on the Oregon coast, where the lumber is largely shipped 

 to San Francisco. The wood is light, hard and strong, and 

 abounds in a fragrant resin, which makes it exceedingly 

 durable. For many years it has been used in large 

 quantities in California for the interior finish of houses and 

 in boat-building, and from this wood the matches used on 

 the Pacific coast are made. 



The Retinosporas now familiar to the cultivators of co- 

 niferous plants all belong to this section of Cupressus, and 

 are all forms of two Japanese trees, Cupressus obtusa and 

 C. picifera, although some of them appear so distinct that 

 it is sometimes hard to realize until the appearance of a 

 normal branch discloses the secret of their origin, that they 



