The uses of cypress are so nearly universal that a list is impossible. In Illinois alone it is reported for seventy-eight different purposes. There is not a state, and scarcely a large wood-using factory, east of the Rocky Mountains which does not demand more or less cypress.
The tree is graceful when young, but ragged and uncouth when old. Though a needleleaf tree, it yearly sheds its foliage and most of its twigs. The fruit is a cone about one inch in diameter; and the seed is equipped with a wing one-fourth inch long and one-eighth inch wide.
When cypress stands in soft ground which most of the time is under water, the roots send up peculiar growths known as knees. They rise from a few inches to several feet above the surface of the mud, and extend above the water at ordinary stages. They are sharp cones, generally hollow. It is believed their function is to furnish air to the tree’s roots, and also to afford anchorage to the roots in the soft mud. When the water is drained away, the knees die.
Cypress is widely planted as an ornament, and a dozen or more varieties have been developed in cultivation.
POND CYPRESS (_Taxodium imbricarium_) so closely resembles bald cypress with which it is associated that the two were once supposed to be the same. Pond cypress averages smaller and its range is more circumscribed. The name pond cypress, by which it is popularly known in Georgia, indicates the localities where it is oftenest found. It is the prevailing cypress in the Okefenoke swamp in southeastern Georgia. The general aspect of the foliage and fruit is the same as of bald cypress. No detailed examination of the wood seems to have been made, but in general appearance it is like the other cypress. It is said that little of it ever gets to sawmills because it grows in situations where logging is inconvenient.
MONTEREY CYPRESS (_Cupressus macrocarpa_). This tree has only one name and that is due to its place of growth on the shores of Monterey bay, California. Its range is more restricted than that of any other American softwood. It does not much exceed 150 acres, though the trees are scattered in a narrow strip for two miles along the coast. They approach so close the breakers that spray flies over them in time of storm. Trees exposed to the sweep of the wind are gnarled and of fantastic shapes. Their crowns are broad and flat like an umbrella, but ragged and unsymmetrical in outline. That form offers least resistance to wind, and most surface to the sun. The trees take the best possible advantage of their opportunities. Tall crowns would be carried away by wind; and the flat tops, with a mass of green foliage, catch all the sunlight possible. They need it, for they grow in fog, and sunshine is scarce. Sheltered trees develop pyramidal tops. It is widely planted in this and other countries, and when conditions are favorable, it is graceful and symmetrical. The largest trees are from sixty to seventy feet tall, others are five or six in diameter; but the tallest trees and the largest trunks seldom go together. The cones are an inch or more in length, and each contains about 100 seeds. The leaves fall the third and fourth years. Wood is heavy, hard, strong, and durable, but is too scarce to be of value as lumber, even if the trunks were suitable for sawlogs. The Monterey cypress is of peculiar interest to botanists and also to physical geographers. The few trees on the shore of Monterey bay appear to be the last remnant of a species which was once more extensive. The ocean is eating away the coast at that point. Fragments of hills, cut sheer down from top to the breakers beneath, are plainly the last remnants of ranges which once extended westward, but have been washed away by the encroaching waves. No one knows how much of the former coast has been destroyed. Apparently the former range of the cypress was principally on land now swallowed up by the encroaching ocean. A mere fringe of the trees--a belt about 200 yards wide along the beach--remains, and the sea is undermining them one by one and carrying them down. So rapidly is the undermining process going on that many large roots of some of the trees are exposed to view.