Cupressus 1 20 1 



brown, with a dark compact inner thin layer, and a spongy outer thick layer, 

 dividing on the surface into rounded ridges covered with small appressed scales ; 

 on young stems thin, slightly scaly, with narrow longitudinal fissures. 



Branches of the fourth year slightly compressed, brown, with traces of the 

 leaves. Branchlet systems disposed in planes tangential to the trunk of the tree, 

 distichous, tri-pinnate, with the pinnae in one plane. Ultimate branchlets flattened, 

 compressed, about ^ in, wide. Leaves appressed, usually marked on the under 

 surface with ill-defined streaks of white, partly on the ventral leaf and partly on the 

 lateral leaves ; lateral pair conduplicate, -^ to xV in. long, often minutely mucronate ; 

 facial pair rhomboidal, much smaller, ^^ in. long, acute, often marked with a glandular 

 furrow or circular pit. Leaves on the main axes, oblong, unequal, the lateral 

 pair ^ in., the facial pair ^ in. long, with acute or acuminate, slightly spreading 

 apices. 



Staminate flowers^ crimson, the connectives usually bearing two anther-cells. 

 Pistillate flowers plum-coloured, with horizontally spreading scales. Cones, ripening 

 in the first autumn, globose, ^ in. in diameter, reddish brown and covered with a 

 glaucous bloom ; scales eight, depressed in the centre and with an ovate acute 

 reflexed process. Seeds, two to five on each scale, ovate, acute, ^ in. long, brown, 

 with conspicuous large resin-vesicles, and narrow wings. 



The seedling ^ has two cotyledons, about ^ in. long, broader and more rounded 

 at the apex than in C. nootkatensis. Primary leaves arranged in whorls, as in 

 that species, acuminate at the apex, \ in. long, conspicuously white beneath. The 

 young plant attains i to 2 in. in height in the first year, frequently giving off 

 two or three lateral branches, and has a very long slender flexuose tap root. 



Varieties 



Hardly any tree has shown under cultivation so much variation as the Lawson 

 cypress, no less than forty-eight varieties being mentioned in the Kew Handlist 

 of Conifercs.^ The more important * may be arranged as follows : — 



L Columnar or fastigiate in habit. 



I, Var. erecta viridis (van strictd). Narrow, erect, pyramidal, with a close dense 

 mass of branches, all set with their foliage-bearing ramifications in planes radially 

 disposed to the main stem. Foliage bright green. This originated ^ in Waterer's 

 nursery at Knap Hill as a seedling, which was raised from seed imported from 

 California in 1855. It was propagated and sold for some time as var. erecta, but in 



' Masters describes in Joum. Linn. Soc. (Bot.) xxvii. 312, fig. 19 (1890), an androgynous flower, the lower scales 

 bearing anthers and the upper scales bearing ovules. 



* Trees often produce seed abundantly when only 6 to 12 ft. high ; and plants were raised from seed of very small trees 

 in England as early as 1863 by W. Tillery. Cf. Gard. Chron., 1864, p. 1013. Barron, in Gard. Chron., i86i, p. 718, gives 

 an instance of plants only 2 ft. high bearing cones. 



^ Beissner, in the second edition of his Handbuch (1909), describes 77 named forms, many of which seem to be hardly worth 

 notice. 



* Var. Jragrans, kept up in the J^ew Handlist, diflFers in no respect from the type, and appears from Gordon, Pinttum, 

 88 (1875), to have been sent out by Standish, and possibly may have been raised from seeds sent by Beardsley. See infra, 

 p. 1206, note I. 



'' Cf. Gard. Chron., 1870, pp. 249, 279, fig. 49 ; and 1874, "• 329- 

 V 2D 



