Cypress. 279 



resembling Sunflowers or Marygolds ; but yet even on a 

 cursory examination, so very plainly and distinctly marked as 

 to render it impossible to mistake it for anything but itself. 

 The calyx is peculiar, with spreading segments, quite broad 

 and ending in short leafy appendages. The receptacle is 

 covered with chaff, the seed flat, and somewhat heart-shaped. 

 The flowers always yellow, with remarkably long and easily' 

 perceivable styles. Some species of it exude drops of trans- 

 parent fragrant resin from the flower disk. 



Cypress, 



The Cupressus Sempervirens — Cypress is in the class 

 Monoecia, order Monedelphia. Its characters are : — male : 

 calyx scale in ament ; corolla none ; anthers four ; sessile, 

 without filaments. Female : calyx a strobile ; scale one flow- 

 ered ; corolla none ; styles concave dots ; nut, angular. Spe- 

 cific characters : — leaves imbricate ; fronts quadrangular. 



The mournful cypress rises round 

 Tapering from the burial ground. 



LiUCAN. 



This is an ornamental evergreen tree, and on account of its 

 perpetual verdure as well as the imperishable nature of its 

 wood, it has been in many nations considered as an emblem of 

 Immortality, and therefore planted on the graves of the dead, 

 and carried in funeral processions. It is said to last as long as 

 stone itself; and we have read that the doors of St. Peter's 

 Church, at Rome, which had been formed of this material in 

 the time of the great Constantino, were not at all injured by 

 time, when taken down eleven hundred years afterwards, by 

 Pope Eugenius, to be replaced by gates of brass. 



It is the universal emblem of mourning, and is the funeral 

 tree of the Eastern World from the Persian Gulf to the Cas- 

 pian Sea. It is also dedicated to the dead from Mazanderan 

 to Constantinople as well as to the utmost bounds of China's 

 fruitful shores. The Greeks burned the remains of their heroes 



