Seedling.—There are 5 or 6 cotyledons, borne in a whorl at the summit of a purplish brown caulicle, about 2 inches long, ending in a tiny curved rootlet, which subsequently develops a few lateral fibres. The cotyledons are linear, 1 to 1¼ inch long, 1⁄10 inch broad, sessile on a broad base, gradually diminishing to an acute apex, upper surface dark green, bearing stomata in lines with a raised midrib; lower surface pale green and uniform. On the stem above the cotyledons are borne about 3 false whorls of leaves, ½ inch long, those below resembling the cotyledons, but bearing stomata on both surfaces; those above having decurrent bases. In the axils of the uppermost leaves lateral branchlets are given off, bearing needles in two rows and forming short shoots, which fall off in autumn.
The preceding description is taken from seedlings raised at Colesborne from cones gathered by Elwes in September 1904 at Mt. Carmel, Illinois.(A.H.)
Distribution
This remarkable tree occurs in North America from southern Delaware, where, according to Sargent, it formerly attained almost its largest size, all along the coast region as far as the Devil's River in Texas, and up the Mississippi valley as far as southern Illinois and south-western Indiana. In these regions it inhabits river bottoms usually submerged during several months, and swampy places. On the Edwards Plateau of Texas,[1] several hundred miles west of the great cypress swamps of eastern Texas, it occurs at 1000 to 1750 feet above sea-level, and attains an enormous size at the edges of the deeper holes near the heads of the permanent water of the Pedernales and other streams. This highland form in certain respects resembles the Mexican variety. In some parts of Louisiana, Texas, and the Gulf States, it occurs as pure forest, and in places so continuously flooded that the seed cannot germinate, I have passed on the railway, built on trestles for miles, through cypress swamps where the soil was submerged to a depth of 5 or 6 feet, and where few other trees could live. In drier places, such as the Wabash valley in southern Indiana, near Mount Carmel, where the cypress is evidently not so happy, it was associated with ash, liquidambar, and maple. In this locality also, although the trees were covered with fruit, I could find no seedlings; and as the accessible trees are in most places being rapidly cut for their timber, they seem likely to become scarcer unless protected. As far as I know it does not grow from the stool or from suckers.[2]
In Arkansas and Missouri there are swamps[3] in which both Taxodium and Nyssa uniflora grow together, the latter with a peculiar dome-shaped base,
- ↑ Ann. Report U.S. Geol. Survey, xviii. 210, 211 (1898). There are specimens from this locality at Kew.
- ↑ R. Ridgway describes this locality as being in 1873 heavily timbered with cypress over an area of about 20,000 acres, in which the best trees had even then been cut and floated out into the river. The largest stump he measured was 38 feet in girth at the ground and 22 feet at 8 feet high. The largest standing tree measured was 27 feet in girth above the swollen base, and the tallest 146 and 147 feet high. Their average height, however, was not above 100 feet, and even the finest of them would not compare for symmetry and length with the sweet gums (liquidambar) and ashes (Fraxinus americana) with which they were associated.—Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. 1882, p. 87. An excellent photograph taken here is published in Garden and Forest, iii. p. 7, and shows the knees remarkably well.
- ↑ Coulter, Missouri Bot. Garden Report, 1903, p. 58.
