1 1 76 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



CUPRESSUS LUSITANICA, Mexican Cypress 



Cupressus lusitanica. Miller, Gard. Did. No. 3 (1768); Lambert, Genus Finns, i. 95, t. 65 (1803) ; 



Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iv. 2477 (1838); Forbes, Fin. Woburn. 187,1. 62 (1840); 



Carribe, Conif. ii. 153 (1867) ; Masters, in Joum. Roy. Hort. Soc. xvii. i (1894), and Journ. 



Linn. Soc. {Bot.) xxxi. 331 (1896); Kent, Veitch's Man. Conif. 210 (1900). 

 Cupessus pendula, L'H^ritier, Stirp. 15, t. 8 (1784) (not Thunberg). 

 Cupressus glauca, Lamarck, Encycl. ii. 243 (1786); Brotero, Fi. Lusitanica, i. 216 (1804); End- 



licher, Syn. Conif. 58 (1847); Dalzell and Gibson, Botnbay Flora, Suppl. 83 (1861); Hooker, 



Fl. Brit. Ind. v. 645 (1888); Masters, in Gard. Chron. x. 761, fig. no (1891); Cooke, Fl. 



Presid. Bombay, ii. 666 (1907). 

 Cupressus Coulteri} Forbes, Pin. Woburn. 190 (1839). 

 Cupressus Lindleyi, Klotzsch, in Endlicher, Syn. Conif. 59 (1847); Hemsley, in Biol. Cent. Amer. 



iii. 183 (1882). 

 Cupressus Ehrenbergii, Kunze, in LinncRa, xx. 16 (1847). 

 Cupressus Karwinskyana, Regal, in Garienflora, vi. 346 (1857). 

 Cupressus sinensis,^ Lee, ex Gordon, Pinetum, 63 (1858). 

 Cupressus mexicana^ Koch, Dendrologie, ii. pt. 2, 159 (1873). 



A tree, attaining in Mexico 100 ft. in height and 12 ft. in girth. Bark reddish 

 brown, fissuring longitudinally into long thin brown strips. Branches widely spread- 

 ing with pendulous branchlets. Branchlet systems alternate, not distichous, 

 spreading at varying angles, bi-pinnate, with the pinnae not disposed in one plane. 

 Ultimate branchlets tetragonal, slightly compressed, ^ in. wide, ^ in. thick. 

 Leaves nearly uniform in four ranks, -^ in. long, appressed, but slightly free at the 

 tips, ovate-acuminate, often mucronate, convex from side to side, occasionally marked 

 with a depressed circular pit. 



Staminate flowers yellowish, \ in. long ; stamens about 20. Cones in the first 

 year covered with a glaucous bloom, with the points of the scales spreading and 

 reflexed ; in the second year ripening and letting out the seeds, and remaining on 

 the branches for about a year afterwards, globose, about \ in. in diameter, on 

 straight long stalks, dark reddish brown, but covered with a glaucous bloom, whitish 

 and thick in trees growing in Mexico, France, and Portugal, faint or absent in 

 England and Ireland ; scales eight, each with a central, usually prominent, triangular 

 and reflexed process. Seeds eight to ten on each scale, \ in. long, brown, with 

 conspicuous resin-vesicles ; wing narrow with a translucent border. 



1 The plant described by Forbes in 1839 as C. Coulteri was raised from seeds taken from a cone, said to have been 

 fifteen years old, in Coulter's herbarium. Loudon, Encycl. Trees, 1077 {1842) states that this plant was raised at Glasnevin 

 in 1837 ; but as Coulter did not arrive in Mexico till 1834 there must be some error in the age ascribed to the seeds. A 

 specimen in the Kew herbarium, dated 1878, from the tree at Glasnevin is C. luntanica, and this tree is probably one of the 

 rare Mexican cypresses which was destroyed by a storm in 1878, as Mr. F. W. Moore informs me. Further storms in 1883 

 and 1893 swept away the remaining Mexican trees at Glasnevin. Masters, in /oara. Linn. Soc. (Bot.) xxxi. 348 (1896) is 

 in error in identifying the specimen of C. Coulten, preserved at Kew, with C. Macnabiana. 



2 Specimens cultivated under this name at Tokai, near Cape Town, are C. lusitanica. 



3 A tree cultivated under this name at Glasnevin, which was destroyed in 1878, is C, lusitanica, according to a branch 

 preserved in the Kew herbarium. 



