Distribution. Western slopes of the Sierra Nevada of California, in an interrupted belt at elevations of 5000°—8400° above the level of the sea, from the middle fork of the American River to the head of Deer Creek just south of latitude 36°; north of King’s River in isolated groves, southward forming forests of considerable extent, and best developed on the north fork of the Tule River. Universally cultivated as an ornamental tree in all the countries of western and southern Europe; and occasionally in the middle eastern United States. 8. TAXODIUM Rich. Bald Cypress. Resinous trees, with furrowed scaly bark, light brown durable heartwood, thin white sapwood, erect ultimately spreading branches, deciduous usually 2-ranked lateral branchlets, scaly globose buds, and stout horizontal roots often producing erect woody projections (_knees_). Leaves spirally disposed, pale and marked with stomata below on both sides of the obscure midrib, dark green above, linear-lanceolate, spreading in 2 ranks, or scale-like and appressed on lateral branchlets, the two forms appearing on the same or on different branches of the same tree or on separate trees, deciduous. Flowers unisexual, from buds formed the previous year; male in the axils of scale-like bracts in long terminal drooping panicles, with 6—8 stamens opposite in 2 ranks, their filaments abruptly enlarged into broadly ovate peltate yellow connectives bearing on their inner face in 2 rows 4—9 2-valved pendulous anther-cells; female scattered near the ends of the branches of the previous year, subglobose, composed of numerous ovate spirally arranged long-pointed scales, adnate below to the thickened fleshy ovuliferous scales bearing at their base 2 erect bottle-shaped ovules. Fruit a globose or obovoid short-stalked woody cone maturing the first year and persistent after the escape of the seeds, formed from the enlargement and union of the flower and ovule-bearing scales abruptly dilated from slender stipes into irregularly 4-sided disks often mucronate at maturity, bearing on the inner face, especially on the stipes, large dark glands filled with blood-red fragrant liquid resin. Seeds in pairs under each scale, attached laterally to the stipes, erect, unequally 3-angled; seed-coat light brown and lustrous, thick, coriaceous or corky, produced into 3 thick unequal lateral wings and below into a slender elongated point; cotyledons 4—9, shorter than the superior radicle. Taxodium, widely distributed through North America and Europe in Miocene and Pliocene times, is now confined to the southern United States and Mexico. Two species are distinguished. The generic name, from τάξος and εῖδος, indicates a resemblance of the leaves to those of the Yew-tree. 1. Taxodium distichum Rich. Bald Cypress. Deciduous Cypress. [Illustration: Fig. 64]