The evergreen cypress (_Cupressus sempervirens_) is a cone-like, tapering tree, with its branches growing close to its trunk, and rarely attaining the height of fifty feet even in its native country. The male catkins are longer than those of the arbor vitæ, and the female ones contain more ovules. The cone is buckler-shaped, and it divides, when ripe, into eight or ten corky scales, each of which has four nuts attached; the cone being partially divided into cells, which may be seen, when the scales have been removed to show the interior. The pollen of each male flower is contained in four cells, attached to the lower part of the inside of the scales. The wood is remarkably hard and fragrant, and it is of a fine close grain; it is also very durable. It is supposed to have been the gopher-wood of Holy Writ, and the citron-wood of the ancient Romans, the beauty of which in tables was so celebrated. The White Cedar (_Cupressus thyoides_) is a species of Cypress, having imbricated leaves, and the same kind of cone; and the Cedar of Goa (_C. lusitanica_) is another species of Cupressus, which appears from the shape of its cones to be nearly allied to the Arbor vitæ. There are some other species, but they are not common in British gardens. THE GEXUS TAXODIUM.—THE DECIDUOUS CYPRESS. The Deciduous Cypress (_Taxodium distichum_) has numerous leaves arranged in two even rows, one on each side of the branch, which fall off in autumn, assuming a reddish tinge before they drop. This genus was separated from Cupressus, because the male catkins, instead of being produced singly at the tips of the branches, are in clusters or panicles, and the anther-like scales, have the pollen in five cells. The cone, which is very small, has only two seeds to each scale, instead of four; and the young plant has five or more cotyledons, while the Cypress has only two. The deciduous Cypress was placed in the genus Cupressus by Linnæus, and afterwards it was called _Schubertia disticha_ by Mirbel. The tree, which grows 120 feet high and upwards in America, with a trunk forty feet in circumference at the base, has generally, when of this size, the lower part of its trunk hollow, often to the height of five feet or six feet from the ground. The roots also send up conical protuberances two feet high, and four feet or five feet wide, which are always hollow. These curious knobs are called in America “cypress knees;” and the negroes use them for bee-hives. The wood of the deciduous Cypress is used in building in Virginia. There is another species (_T. sempervirens_) which does not lose its leaves in winter, a native of California, but it has not yet been introduced. THE GENUS JUNIPERUS.—THE JUNIPER. [Illustration: FIG. 100.—JUNIPER (_Juniperus communis_).]