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ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM.

PART III.

no signs of vegetation, and that he has never succeeded in obtaining shootsfrom them by wounding the surface, and covering them with earth. Thesefacts are confirmed by Dupratz, tile author of Voyage, a la Louisiane, whosays that he has seen protuberances which had grown up from the roots ofdeciduous cypresses after they had been cut down, in the form of a sugar-loaf,to the height of 10 ft., being a fourth part as broad as they were high, andwithout having ever produced either a root or a shoot. Bose, who mentionsthis on Dupratz’s authority, doubts the accuracy of his observation, and saysthat he never saw these protuberances of more than 1 ft. in height. Flint,in his Geography and History of the Western States , mentions these “curiously-shaped knobs,” which, he says, are, in America , commonly called “ cypressknees; ” while the hollow base of the trunk is called “ the tree’s buttock.”“ The cypress,” he says, “ loves the deepest, most gloomy, inaccessible, andinundated swamps; and seems to flourish where water covers its roots morethan half the year. When the water rises from 8 ft. to 10 ft. from the over-flow of the rivers, the apex of the tree’s buttock is just on a level with thesurface of the water. It is then, in many places, that they cut it. Thenegroes surround the tree in periogues, and thus get at the tree above thelarge and broad buttock, and fell it with comparative ease. They cut off 1 thestraight shaft as suits their purpose, and float it to a raft, or the nearest highgrounds.” ( Geog. and Hist., &c., vol. i. p. 62.) The knees are produced abun-dantly by the large trees at Syon and Whitton, where they rise upwards of 1 ft.above the surface of the soil; and more than double that height from the rootsunder water, in the case of trees growing by the sides of lakes at these places.These protuberances are shown in the plate of the full-grown tree of thisspecies in our last Volume. The tree is of comparatively slow growth inthe climate of London ; and the fronds, or points of the shoots, are frequentlykilled back by early frosts. Nevertheless, it attains the height, in moistsoils, of 5 ft. or 6 ft. in 6 or 8 years, and of 15 ft. in 12 or 15 years; and, in40 or 50 years, it is 40 ft. or 50 ft. in height. The largest tree in the envi-rons of London is at Whitton, where, in 1834, it was 81 ft. high, with a trunk5 ft. in diameter at 2 ft. from the ground. There are trees nearly 70 ft. high atSyon; and trees at Bagshot, St. Ann’s Hill, and Purser’s Cross which haveborne male blossoms and cones. The first tree on record which bore conesin England was one at Wimbledon , before 1752. (See History.') The treethrives well in Scotland , and also in the climate of Paris, and in centralGermany .

Geography. The deciduous cypress is found on the banks of the Indian River,a small stream that waters part of Delaware , in lat. 38° 50', and which may beconsidered as its northern boundary. Hence, proceeding southward,it becomesmore abundant in the swamps ; but, in Maryland and Virginia, it is confinedto the view of the sea, where the winter is milder, and the summer moreintense. Beyond Norfolk , its limits coincide exactly with those of the pinebarrens; and, in the Carolinas and Georgia, it occupies a great part of theswamps, which border the rivers after they have left the mountains, andentered the low lands. In East Florida, the soil is, in general, more uni-form ; and here the long-leaved pine ( P. australis ) and deciduous cypressare very abundant; the one on the low grounds, and the other on theuplands. The Mississippi, from its mouth to the river of the Arkansas , adistance (following its windings) of more than 600 miles, is bordered withmarshes, which, at the annual overflowing of this mighty stream, form avast expanse of waters. In Louisiana , those parts of the marshes wherethe deciduous cypress grows almost alone are called cyprieres or cypressswamps, as those in which it is mingled with the white cedar are called cedarswamps, and they sometimes occupy thousands of acres. In the Floridas ,these swamps are contiguous to the immeasurable tracts covered with pines,and called pine barrens; or with tall rank grass, and called savannahs. Inthe midst of the pine forests and savannahs is seen, here and there, a bog,or a plash of water, filled with deciduous cypresses, the squalid appearance of