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170 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland
In Hampshire 1 the wood is used for making whip-handles, and the tree is
known there on that account as "whip-crop."
Mr. Weale, of Liverpool, reports as follows on a sample of this wood which I
sent him : "The wood is of a medium hardness, good length of fibre, and takes a
clean finish. Not tough. Rays invisible on transverse section. Grain moderately
close and even. Warps badly in drying, and is liable to split."
In a little book on English timber by "Acorn" (Rider and Son, London, 1904),
I find the following note on the whitebeam, though the author does not notice either
of the service trees : " In a green state whitebeam has a strong smell, and even
after seasoning this is retained to a certain extent. A great many handles for
cutlery are made from it, and its hardness is admirably adapted for these, as it is
capable of taking a very high polish from the extreme closeness of its grain. It is
also used in the manufacture of musical instruments, and the tops and small pieces
are always appreciated by the turner." As it is usually available only in small pieces,
these would probably, when thoroughly seasoned, be very useful to introduce as
blocks in parquet flooring. (H. J. E.)
1 Townsend, Flora of Hampshire, 1 25 (1883).
TAXODIUM
Taxodium, Richard, Ann. Mus. Par. xvi. 298 (1810); Bentham et Hooker, Gen. PL iii. 429
(1880); Masters, Jour. Linn. Soc. (Hot.) xxx. 24 (1893).
Scliiiberlia, Mirbel, Now. Bull. Soc. Philom. iii. 123 (1812).
Glyptostrobus, Endlicher, Syn. Conif. 3 0 (1847).
DECIDUOUS or subevergreen trees, several extinct species and a series of living
forms, which have been variously considered to constitute one, two, or three species,
belonging to the tribe Taxodinece of the order Coniferse.
Branchlets of two kinds, those at the apex of the shoot persistent, and bearing
axillary buds, those lower down on the shoot deciduous and without buds. Buds of
two kinds: those near the apex of the shoot, two in number, sub-terminal, globose,
composed of imbricated, ovate, acute, keeled scales; these buds continue the growth
of the persistent shoot. The lateral buds, situated lower on the shoot, are minute
globose swellings, enclosed in two transverse, broadly oval, concave, membranous
scales, which do not meet. These buds produce the deciduous branchlets, and
are developed both on older and current year's shoots, in the latter case arising in
the axils of primary leaves.
Leaves inserted spirally on the branchlets; on the persistent shoots, spreading
more or less radially; on the deciduous shoots, in the usual forms of the species,
thrown by a twisting of their bases into two lateral ranks, thus assuming a pseudo-
distichous arrangement; linear, acute, channelled along the median line above,
keeled and bearing stomata below. In var. imbricaria the leaves are not pseudo-
distichously arranged, but are appressed around the twig and spreading at their
free apex; they are narrow, long-pointed, concave above.
Flowers monoecious. Male flowers in panicles, 3 to 5 inches long, arising at the
end of the preceding year's shoot. Each flower is minute, sub-sessile, and consists
of a stalk surrounded at its base by ovate scales, and bearing 6 to 8 distichously
opposite stamens. Female flowers, scattered near the ends of branchlets of the
preceding year, solitary, globular, consisting of numerous imbricated pointed bracts,
adnate below to the thickened fleshy scales, each of which bears two ovules.
Fruit, a globular or ellipsoidal, short-stalked, woody cone, an inch or more in
diameter, ripening in the first year, composed of thick coriaceous peltate scales, the
stipes of which are slender and spring off at right angles from the axis of the cone;
the discs, rhomboidal in shape, show a triangular scar at the base, above which they
are irregularly crenulate and rugose. The bract having almost entirely coalesced
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