CHAP. CXIII. 



CONl'FER/E cuprf/ssits. 



2469 



naturally disposed to grow in ; but this winding them about prevented the air 

 from entering the inward parts of the branches, so that the leaves decayed, 

 and became unsightly, and greatly retarded their growth." Lamarck, Des- 

 fontaines, and some other French writers, assert that, if the seed of either 

 variety be sown, the produce will consist partly of both kinds ; but M. Fou- 

 geraux, in a memoir read to the Royal Agricultural Society of Paris, in 1786, 

 asserts that he has sown the seeds of both varieties repeatedly, and has always 

 found them come true. He adds that the spreading cypress is hardier, and 

 furnishes wood of a better quality, from the air getting free access among the 

 branches, which it cannot do in the upright variety. Dr. Walsh, in his " Notes 

 on the Botany of Constantinople," published in the Horticultural Transactions 

 for 1824, is decidedly of opinion that C. horizon talis is a distinct species. 

 " The character of the whole tree," he says, " is distinct and permanent. The 

 branches project as horizontally as those of the oak ; and the tree more resem- 

 bles a pine than a cypress. It is in great abundance, mixed with C. semper- 

 virens, in all the Turkish cemeteries. Whenever a Turk of respectability 

 buries one of his family, he plants a young cypress at the head of the grave, 

 as well because its aromatic resin qualifies the putrid effluvia of the place, as 

 because its evergreen foliage is an emblem of immortality." 



The exact date of the introduction of the cypress into England is uncer- 

 tain ; but Turner mentions it as "growing plenteously at Syon," in the edition 

 of his Names of Herbes which was published in 1548, when Turner was phy- 

 sician at Syon; and Gerard, writing in 1597, mentions that there are trees of 

 it at " Syon, a place neere London, sometime a house of nunnes. It groweth 

 also at Greenwich, and at other places, and likewise at Hampstead, in the 

 garden of Mr. Wade, one of the clerkes of Her Majesties prive councell." 

 (Herb., 1368.) As seeds are ripened abundantly in England, the tree has long 

 been plentiful in British nurseries ; and, in consequence, it has been so exten- 

 sively distributed, that there is scarcely a suburban villa or a country seat in 

 which it is not to be found. In France, in the climate of Paris, it can scarcely 

 be considered as hardy, being killed to the ground by severe winters. It is, 

 however, much cultivated there in pots and tubs, for the decoration of par- 

 terres and apartments, in the summer season. In this case, it is always neatly 

 tied, so as to insure the permanence of its pyramidal form. In the south of 

 France, as at Montpelier for example, it attains a large size ; but in the north 

 and throughout Germany, it is a green-house plant. 



7 i) 4 



