Cyperaceae

“ Cyperaceæ. The majority are perennial (seldom [285] annual) herbs living in damp situations, with a sympodial rhizome and grass-like appearance. The stems are seldom hollow, or have swollen nodes, but generally triangular, with the upper internode just below the inflorescence generally very long. The leaves are often arranged in 3 rows, the leaf-sheath is closed (very seldom split) , and the ligule is absent or insignificant. The flowers are arranged in spikes (spikelets) which may be united into other forms of inflorescences (chiefly spikes or racemes) . ”

“ Juncaceæ are, by several authors, classed among the Liliifloræ, but there are so many morphological and partly anatomical features agreeing with the two following orders, that they may, no doubt, most properly be regarded as the starting point of these, especially of the Cyperaceæ, which they resemble in the type of flowers, the inflorescence, the type of mechanical system, and the stomata.
Pollination by means of the wind. Cross-pollination is often established by protogyny. ”

“ Cyperaceæ—The sedges. Grasslike plants with solid, often triangular stems. Very often inhabitants of wet places. Throughout the world, Crex rugs are made from a species of Carex, the largest genus in the family. About 75 genera and 3,200 species.
Palmaceæ—The palms. All trees or shrubs, or sometimes climbing vines. Includes the coconut and palm-oil trees, two palms of tremendous economic importance. Inhabitants of tropical and warm regions, and only very few found in the United States. Over 130 genera and 1,200 species. ”

“ It attains to a great age and immense size. The trunk and branches of an old cypress are smooth and white as ivory, while its light, feathery foliage is of the most dazzling golden-green; and rising, as it often does, amid clumps of dark varnished evergreens,—bay and magnolia and myrtle,—it has a singular and beautiful effect. The long swaying draperies of the gray moss interpose everywhere their wavering outlines and pearl tints amid the brightness and bloom of the forest, giving to its deep recesses the mystery of grottoes hung with fanciful vegetable stalactites. ”

“ Cypresses shaped like flames, tall pines with the abrupt flatness of their tops, thin canes in the brakes, sharp aloes by the road-side, and olives with the delicate acuteness of the leaf—these make keen lines of slender vegetation. ”

“ Finally, in talking, the gardener pronounced the name—Cypripedium. Planting this long word deep and firm in his memory Mr. Measures hurried to the house, looked it out in the multitudinous books on gardening already stored there, and discovered that Cypripedium is an orchid. Pursuing the investigation further, he learned that orchids are the choicest of flowers, that several thousand species of them, all beautiful and different, may be cultivated, that some are easy and some difficult. It dawned upon him then that this might well be the special variety of plant which would answer his purpose. ”

“ The flowers, which are often unisexual, are wind-pollinated. The fruit is one-seeded, with a tough, leathery or hard wall. There are nearly 70 genera containing about 3000 species and widely distributed throughout the earth, chiefly as marsh-plants. In the arctic zone they form 10% of the flora; they will flourish in soils rich in humus which are too acid to support grasses. The large genus Cyperus contains about 400 species, chiefly in the warmer parts of the earth ”

“ Most of the plants contained in this section are evergreen shrubs or low trees, but some of them attain a considerable size. Only one species, the deciduous Cypress, loses its leaves in winter. Many of the species are only half-hardy in Britain, and none of them are grown in this country for their timber. They all exude resin occasionally from their leaves and branches, but none of them produce turpentine. ”

“ Some plants grow straight up and have tall stems, as silver-fir fir cypress; some are by comparison crooked and have short stems, as willow fig pomegranate; and there are like differences as to degree of thickness. Again some have a single stem, others many stems; and this difference corresponds [3] more or less to that between those which have sidegrowths and those which have none, or that between those which have many branches and those which have few, such as the date-palm. And in these very instances we have also differences in strength thickness and the like. ”

“ The wood of the cypress is very little used upon the river, not, perhaps, in consequence of its inferiority of quality, but the difficulty of access to it.
In conclusion, we cannot withhold a few words upon the singular typical similarity between the appearance of vegetation upon its banks and the river itself. Gray forests of cypress, the blended foliage of the oak, the cottonwood, and the ash, with a charming intermixture of that beautiful parasitic evergreen, the mistletoe, above Vicksburg, suggest the blooming grandeur of the stream. ”

“ The Pines—The Spruces—The Firs—The Douglas Spruce—The Hemlocks—The Sequoias—The Arbor-vitaes—The Incense Cedar—The Cypresses—The Junipers—The Larches, or Tamaracks
The cone-bearers, or conifers, are a distinct race that we commonly call evergreens. They include pines, hemlocks, spruces, firs, sequoias, cypresses, cedars, and junipers. Besides these, the tamaracks and the bald cypress must be included, although their leaves are shed in the autumn. The term "evergreen" applies equally well to magnolias, laurels, and many oaks. Birches and alders and magnolias bear cone-like fruits. ”

“ A second cypress standing near, and of almost equal size, is even more graceful, and they, and all the noble trees which adorn these speaking solitudes, are covered with a creeping plant resembling gray moss, hanging over every branch like long gray hair, giving them a most venerable and druidical look. ”

“ This is one of the most distinct of the new hybrid Lady’s Slippers that have been recently introduced to the notice of Orchid-growers; it will also be appreciated as one of the most useful, being of a neat free-growing and abundant-blooming habit of growth. The Cypripediums are everybody’s plants, that is to say, any one who has a place adapted for their cultivation can manage them without difficulty. Many growers make them their especial care and study, procuring every species and variety that can be obtained, and thus forming a very interesting and diverse group. ”

“ The most surprising thing about the bald cypress is the flaring base of the trunk, and the root system which seems too large for the tall but usually narrow top. Knees of cypress rising out of the water from the main roots, are distinguished from stumps by their smooth, conical tops. The base of a great tree often spreads into wide flying buttresses, each hollowed on the inside, but serving with the others to support the hollow-trunked tree. Many a giant of great age stands thus on stilts whose submerged ends are the gnarled roots of the tree. ”

“ The Cycads were still represented by the Zamias, and by many species of Pterophyllum. The Conifers, that grand family of recent times, to which the pines, firs, and other trees of our northern forests belong, began to occupy an important part in the world’s vegetation from this epoch. The earliest Conifers belonged to the genera Thuites, Taxites, and Brachyphyllum. The Thuites were true Thuyas, evergreen trees of the present epoch, with compressed branches, small imbricated and serrated leaves, somewhat resembling those of the Cypress, but distinguished by many points of special organisation. ”

“ Of the true cypresses there are four North American species likely to prove of high value in the United Kingdom; but in regard to them, it is of the highest importance to use only plants raised from seed. Unluckily, they all strike readily from cuttings, and many of us have formed a poor opinion of these trees from being supplied with plants propagated in that manner, which never can develop their true character, but grow into unwieldy, branchy bushes. ”

“ The American or Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum) is a tree of considerable importance. It grows in the South Atlantic and Gulf States, on submerged lands or in deep swamps where unusual logging methods are necessitated. The seasoned wood resembles white cedar in that it is soft, light, and very durable. It has been called by many names. Pieces were once called black or white cypress according as they sank or floated. All dark pieces are now called black cypress. The tinted woods of some localities are called red or yellow cypress. ”

“ The Cypripedia are of easy cultivation. They may, moreover, be freely hybridized, and are more readily produced from seed than many other subjects, as may be seen from the number which have been brought before the public, by those who make it their study to raise them in this way. ”

“ To describe the flower is an ungrateful task. Tints so exquisitely soft are not to be defined in words; it is pleasanter to sum them up in the phrase ‘all golden,’ as I did formerly, when there was no need for precision. But here I must be specific, and in truth Cypripedium insigne Sanderae is not to be so described. The dorsal, beautifully waved, has a broad white margin and a cloud of the tenderest grass-green in the midst, covered with a soft green network. There are a few tiniest specks of brown on either side the midrib. ”

“ Seed is hidden from us when it is disseminated in the air, as the physicist Anaxagoras holds, or is distributed over the land by the surface water, as Theophrastus maintains. The seeds which the farmer can see should be studied with the greatest care. There are some varieties, like that of the cypress, which are so small as to be almost invisible, for those nuts which the cypress bears, that look like little balls covered with bark, are not the seed but contain it. ”

“ Of the genus Cypripedium, Great-Britain produces only one, America several species; of these the album here figured, (whose name is derived from the whiteness of its petals, and with which the nectary must not be confounded) is by far the most magnificent; indeed there are few flowers which to such singularity of structure add such elegance and beauty: it grows spontaneously in various parts of North-America, and chiefly in the woods; was introduced to the royal garden at Kew, by Mr. ”

“ Cypripedium Fairrieanum, Lindley, Gardeners’ Chronicle, 1857, 740; Hooker, Botanical Magazine, t. 5024; Van Houtte, Flore des Serres, t. 1244; Bateman, Second Century of Orchidaceous plants, t. 140; Reichenbach fil., Xenia Orchidacea, t. 133; Williams, Orchid Grower’s Manual, 5 ed. 153.
The Cypripediums form a very large genus of Orchids, which is also one of the most useful for decorating our Orchid-houses or plant stoves, as well as for exhibition purposes. Nearly all the species continue long in flower and are of easy cultivation. ”

“ In maritime [219] districts of the United Kingdom it grows most vigorously, and ripens seed freely, forming a splendid shelter for other trees. But its branch growth is so luxuriant as to be apt to outstrip the root system; wherefore, to prevent young plants getting swung by sea winds, it is well to shorten the branches till the trees are well established.
The Monterey cypress is of a beautiful bright green, and forms a lovely hedge, for which purpose it may be propagated to any extent by cuttings; but for forest purposes seedlings should invariably be used. ”

“ Oaks draped with moss, a great cypress at the edge of the clearing, which had grown up and up till it was higher than some of the trees, and spread its boughs over them like an umbrella to keep off the rain, and keeping off the sunshine as well, so that they had grown up so many tall, thin trunks, with tops quite hidden by the dark green cypress, and looking like upright props to keep its great top spread. ”

“ Two days' journey from here, in the path of the setting sun, there stands a cypress tree, larger than any other cypress that grows upon the earth. Sit down where the shadow is darkest, close to the trunk, and keep very still. By-and-by you will hear a mighty rushing of wings, and all the birds in the world will come and nestle in the branches. ”

“ This new species is both distinct and rare. It is, moreover, very beautiful and one that every lover of Cypripediums will be looking after. There are some cultivators who do not care for this class of Orchids, and there are some others who grow all the species and varieties they can procure, making the collecting of them a hobby. We can fully understand the pleasurable feelings of these latter, as the plants are ornamental in foliage as well as in flower, thus always keeping up a good appearance; they are also very easy of cultivation, and most of them take but little room to grow in. ”

“ These natural orders are Compositæ, Leguminosæ, Gramineæ, Caryophylleæ, Cruciferæ, Labiatæ, Scrophularineæ, and Umbelliferæ. The exception arises from the prevalence, already noticed, of Cyperaceceæ in the Flora of the Southern Alps. In comparing the figures in the Great Atlas column with those for the other areas above enumerated, it is well to recollect that our materials are taken from a district much more limited in extent than the others, and are necessarily imperfect, because obtained from a single short visit to each valley at a season when many species are yet undeveloped. ”

“ Cypripedium calurum, Reichenbach fil., in Gardeners’ Chronicle, N.S., xv. 41.
The class of hybrid Cypripediums is becoming a numerous one, and some of the novelties are very distinct and beautiful, for although it may be difficult to beat the original types, yet in some cases they are superseded as regards colour, shape or form. We are greatly indebted to the Messrs. Veitch & Sons, of Chelsea, and others, for the good they have done in taking up the fertilisation of Orchids, and in raising the different forms which have appeared. ”