Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 85.djvu/355

Rh The Cypress (Taxodium distichum) is one of our most interesting trees, from several points of view, and a great deal has been written about it. It ranges from Delaware and southwestern Indiana to Florida (within two degrees of the Tropic of Cancer) and Texas, and is almost

 (Taxodium distichum) Taken in early spring when trees were leafless. February, 1913.

confined to the coastal plain. It is usually abundant where it grows, but more or less associated with other deciduous trees.

This is a swamp tree, growing naturally only where the ground is alternately dry and overflowed. It can stand flooding to a depth of eight or ten feet for a few weeks at a time, and 25 feet for a few days, but does not seem to grow on the immediate banks of the Mississippi and other large rivers whose high-water periods last too long; except near their mouths where the seasonal fluctuations are necessarily less than they are farther up. Its occurrence on the banks of ox-bow lakes which were once part of the Mississippi River may therefore be used as