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naturally disposed to grow in; but this winding them about prevented the airfrom 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 eithervariety 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 alwaysfound them come true. He adds that the spreading cypress is hardier, andfurnishes wood of a better quality, from the air getting free access among thebranches, which it cannot do in the upright variety. Dr. Walsh, in his “ Noteson the Botany of Constantinople,” published in the Horticultural Transactionsfor 1824, is decidedly of opinion that C. horizontalis is a distinct species.“ The character of the whole tree,” he says, “ is distinct and permanent. Thebranches 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 respectabilityburies 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, asbecause 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 editionof 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 ofit at “ Syon, a place neere London, sometime a house of nunnes. It growethalso at Greenwich, and at other places, and likewise at Hampstead, in thegarden of Mr. Wade, one of the clerkes of Her Majesties prive councell.”( Herb., 1368.) As seeds are ripened abundantly in England, the tree has longbeen 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 inwhich it is not to be found. In France, in the climate of Paris, it can scarcelybe 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 neatlytied, so as to insure the permanence of its pyramidal form. In the south ofFrance, as at Montpelier for example, it attains a large size ; but in the northand throughout Germany, it is a green-house plant.
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