90 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Cupressus macrocarpa is one of the fastest-growing and most 

 beautiful of the trees of California which have proved fairly- 

 hardy in Britain. The variety with a spreading habit, introduced 

 in 1838 under the name of C. Lamhertiana, is perhaps the 

 most ornamental ; but the typical variety — introduced by 

 Hartweg from California, through the Eoyal Horticultural 

 Society, in 1846 — with an upright habit and straight stem, is 

 much the best forest tree. It grows very freely, and is tolerably 

 hardy on light warm soils in many parts of the country, but it 

 thrives best and is a most useful tree in the moist climate of 

 our western coasts, where numerous fine specimens are growing 

 with the greatest vigour and forming splendid trees. In its 

 native habitat, in Monterey County, California, it grows along 

 the coast of the Monterey peninsula in the full sweep of the wind 

 from the Pacific Ocean, as graphically described in a letter I 

 lately received from Mr. Thomas Lee, a gardener who lives 

 in Monterey, and knows the district and trees thoroughly well. 

 He says : *' Cupressus macrocarpa is found growing in natural 

 forests a few miles to the south of the City of Monterey, and 

 at Cypress Point they grow with great vigour and tenacity 

 right over the sea-bluffs in the full force of the gales from the 

 Pacific, clinging with a firm grasp of their strong roots to the 

 face and crown of the bluffs, and defying the strongest storms to 

 uproot them. On the crest of the bluffs the trees are much bent 

 over, with the boughs gnarled and distorted by the force of the 

 fierce blast, but a short distance inland they rear their heads 

 straight into the air and form splendid trunks, five of which, 

 taken at random, I measured for you and found them to be in 

 girth as follows : 10 ft. 4 in., 11 ft., 12 ft. 8 in., 13 ft. 6 in., and 

 15 ft., all taken at 5 ft. from the ground. The average height 

 of the trees at this spot would be about 80 ft., but they reach a 

 much greater height further inland. When the noted Hotel del 

 Monte (Hotel of the Woods) was built, about a dozen years ago, 

 the land between it and the Bay of Monterey, about 1,000 yards 

 wide, was principally sandhills or dunes, which were continually 

 shifting with the action of the wind. The gardener at that time, 

 a Mr. Ulrich, conceived the idea of planting the sands with 

 Cypress and Pines {Finns insignis and P. muricata) almost to 

 high-water mark, as a shelter and wind-break to the hotel and 

 grounds. Hundreds of loads of soil were carted to plant the trees 



