104 



passed through the great ice storm of January, 1891, 

 sustaining comparatively little injury. A photograph 

 of the trees near the street, made directly afterward by 

 Mr. Benjamin H. Conant of Wenham, is one of the 

 finest pictures taken by any one to show the effects of 

 this storm in our vicinity. 



The introduction of the European larch by Col. Pick- 

 ering was the means of establishing this tree as a favor- 

 ite in Wenham and its neighborhood, for they are often 

 met with there in yards and gardens, the supply being 

 derived chiefly from seedlings, the offspring of the 

 Pickering larches. 



The bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) on Broad 

 street, in the yard of the Mansfield house, No. 27, is, so 

 far as I can learn, the most northerly individual of the 

 species growing in New England. The tree is about 

 fifty feet high and is six and one half feet in circumference 

 at five feet from the ground. It was planted about 1840 

 by Mr. Stephen Driver, a lover of all that was interesting 

 and beautiful in the vegetable world. This tree is now in 

 a perfectly healthy condition. There is a larger but less 

 graceful bald cypress on the Derby estate, near the little 

 pond. It is eleven feet in circumference, and was proba- 

 bly planted about one hundred years ago. This is the 

 tree which, in its natural habitat, the deep swamps of the 

 southern United States, produces those wonderful pro- 

 tuberances from the surface roots known as " knees," 

 the cause and significance of which no one has, as yet, 

 satisfactorily explained. There are two of these trees 

 before the United States mint, and a large and cele- 

 brated one in the Bartram garden in Philadelphia. It 

 is occasionally planted for ornament, especially in the 

 southern states. For some unknown reason this tree. 



