Cryptomeria

“ Many curious varieties have been obtained by Japanese horticulturists, including some dwarf shrubby forms not exceeding a few feet in height. When grown in Great Britain Cryptomeria requires a deep, well-drained soil with plenty of moisture, and protection from cold winds. ”

“ Will people never learn that cryptomerias cannot flourish in south Italy? Instead of this amateurish gardening, why not consult some competent professional, who with bougain-villeas, hibiscus and fifty other such plants would soon transform this favoured spot into a miniature paradise? ”

“ This is in accordance with that mutilomania of the south: that love of torturing trees which causes them to prune pines till they look like paint-brushes that had been out all night, and which explains their infatuation for the much-enduring robinia that allows itself to be teased into any pattern suggested by their unhealthy phantasy. It is really as if there were something offensive to the Latin mind in the sight of a well-grown tree, as if man alone had the right of expanding normally. But I must not do the City Fathers an injustice. They have planted two rows of cryptomerias. ”

“ Shaded avenues, broad staircases, and climbing slopes lead to the gate-ways of the two great sanctuaries—the mortuary temples and tombs of the Shogun Iyeyasu and his worthy grandson, the Shogun Iyemitsu. The hillside is shaded by magnificent old cryptomerias; and these sacred groves, with the soft cathedral light under the high canopy of leaves, are as wonderful as the sacred buildings. Each splendid gate-way, as well as the soaring pagoda, can be seen in fine perspective at the end of long avenues of trees, and bronze or stone torii form lofty portals to the holy places. ”

“ A more still and solemn, a more peaceful and beautiful resting-place could not be imagined, and the peculiar green twilight reigning under the closely-set cryptomerias, with those long stretches of stone balustrades and embankments, which the forest has claimed for its own and clothed in a concealing mantle of the greenest moss, subdue the most frivolous beholder to silence and seriousness. ”

“ Thatched roofs, whose ridge poles are beds of lilies, shaded by glorified green plumes of bamboo-trees, tall, red-barked cryptomerias, crooked pines, and gnarled camphor-trees, everywhere charm the eye. ”

“ The plant world falls into two great divisions, the higher or flowering plants (Phanerogams) , characterized by the formation of a seed, and the lower or flowerless plants (Cryptogams) , in which no seed is formed but the plants are disseminated by means of unicellular bodies termed spores. The term Cryptogam is archaic, implying a hidden method of reproduction as compared with the obvious method represented by the flower of the Phanerogam; with the aid of a good microscope it is, however, easier to follow the process of fertilization in many Cryptogams than in the flowering plants. ”

“ It remained uncertain, however, from which line of Cryptogams the gymnospermous Seed-plants had sprung. The great point of morphological comparison was the presence of two kinds of spore, and this was known to occur in the recent Lycopods and Water-ferns (Rhizocarpeae) and was also found in fossil representatives of the third phylum, that of the Horsetails. As a matter of fact all the three great Cryptogamic classes have found champions to maintain their claim to the ancestry of the Seed-plants, and in every case fossil evidence was called in. ”

“ Each community appears to consist of a single female and two kinds of workers; the latter in some species are quite unlike each other, differing in the form of the head, and in the armature of the thorax and nodes of the peduncle. The species of Cryptocerus appear to be omnivorous, and are frequently attracted by the excrement of birds. The pupae are not enclosed in a cocoon. In the South of Europe two very minute ants, of the genera Strumigenys and Epitritus, belonging to this family, are met with under very large stones partly embedded in the earth. ”

“ This distinction between the Vascular Cryptogam Calamites and the supposed Gymnosperm Calamodendron is based on the presence of secondary wood in the latter type of stem. The prominence formerly assigned to the power of secondary thickening possessed by a plant as a taxonomic feature, is now known to have been the result of imperfect knowledge. The occurrence of a cambium layer and the ability of a plant to increase in girth by the activity of a definite meristem, is a feature which some recent Vascular Cryptogams [596] share with the higher plants ”

“ The group is named Cryptophasa, from the secret and secure manner in which this new and evidently natural division of moths live in the larva state; reflecting on the singularity of which, we are struck at the wonderful means of self-preservation which the great Author of Nature has bestowed on different members of the animal creation, among which we know insects of every country abound with examples. The great enemy against which these larvæ take such precaution, is the mantis or walking-leaf, which abound in New South Wales, devouring multitudes of larvæ in the day-time. ”

“ If considered etymologically, it is merely a record of a past mistake, but it would be absurd to discard such a well-known name on the grounds that the genus is a Vascular Cryptogam and far removed from reeds. On the other hand, there often arise cases which present a real difficulty. The following example conveniently illustrates two distinct points of view as regards generic nomenclature. In 1875 Saporta described and figured a fragment of a fossil plant from the Jurassic beds of France as Cycadorachis armata [162] ”

“ I set up a second menagerie with some Cryptocephali, who are closely related to the Clythræ. The inmates are the Ilex Cryptocephalus (C. ilicis, OLIV.) , the Two-spotted Cryptocephalus (C. bipunctatus, LIN.) and the Golden Cryptocephalus (C. hypochoeridis, LIN.) , who wears a resplendent costume. For the first two I provide sprigs of ilex; for the third, the heads of a centaury (Centaurea aspera) , which is the favourite plant of this living gem. ”

“ They are the fossils of the genus Cryptozoon of Hall (Fig. 7 [36] ) , which form great masses filling certain beds of Upper Cambrian age, and which, when sliced and studied microscopically, are found to consist of concentric thin laminæ filled in between with a porous mass of calcareous matter penetrated by an infinity of tortuous tubes. Forms of this kind have been traced downward into pre-Cambrian beds in Colorado, and as we shall find in New Brunswick, into the Upper Laurentian itself. ”

“ They spin no web, but have a retreat under a stone. Their chief prey appear to be ants. Most of the species are native to the Mediterranean region, the others belonging to Central and Southern Asia.
Simon includes in this family the remarkable genus Cryptothele, found in Ceylon, Malacca, New Guinea, and various Oceanic islands. They are moderate sized brownish spiders, with hard integuments rugged with tubercles and projections. Their most curious characteristic is their power of retracting their spinnerets within a sort of sheath, so that they become entirely invisible. ”

“ The above two examples have represented the “tough” case. In Fig. 75, where the text is the solution to a crypt by J. Lloyd Hood published as No. 9 in the February, 1932, Cryptogram, we have the average comparatively simple case. The total variety-count is 118, making the isolation count about 23 and throwing the line of demarcation into the group D H Z, where D is the only step-down letter. Every letter in the isolated group is actually a consonant, and step (d) adds the letters T G H Z. On the consonant-line, A, O, and to a lesser extent U, stand out clearly as vowels. ”

“ In Cryptophialus, however, and in certain genera of the Lepadidæ, as Alcippe, Lithotrya, and Anelasma, the anterior or basal extremity does continue to grow, and is not cemented down, and therefore comes to be prolonged beyond the original point of attachment; in order to allow of this, the surface to which the Cirripede is attached has to yield, apparently simply to the pressure exerted in the case of Anelasma, but in the three other genera, to the rasping action of the roughened surface of the extremity of the peduncle. ”

“ Chromophyton forms an eight-celled colony. Both plants multiply solely by means of zoospores. The Cryptomonadeae and Chromulineae are motile through the greater part of their life. Cryptomonas, when dividing in a mucilage after encystment, recalls the condition in Gloeocystis. In Synura and Chromulina the cells form a spherical motile colony, recalling Volvocaceae. Chromulina is uniciliate, and is contained in a hyaline capsule. Like the Peridiniaceae, the Cryptomonadaceae have been included among Flagellata. They have no close affinity with Euphaeophyceae. ”

“ Moreover, for every time that the initial key-number increases in size, there is a corresponding decrease in all numbers occupying the odd serial positions and a corresponding increase in all numbers occupying the even positions.
We have, then, a periodic cryptogram whose period is 2, and two cipher alphabets, consisting of numbers, in which the only difference is one of size. But these substitutes, unlike those of the Vigenère, will not be placed in normal alphabetical order; to complete the solution by one of the general methods, it may become necessary to take a number of frequency counts. ”

“ A factor of particularly grave importance in the selection of a cipher to fit a given purpose is the probable amount of enciphered material which is going to fall into the possession of unauthorized persons. A criminal, who has had to send but one brief cryptogram in a lifetime, might reasonably expect that it will remain forever unread, no matter how weak the cipher. A commercial firm, transmitting thousands of words over the air, is more vulnerable ”

“ The most vulnerable of the groups, however, is (b) . Of the three letters which may be represented here, two are vowels, concerning which we are to hear more, and not one is readily doubled. When Z, tentatively included in this group, is found to have been doubled near the beginning of a word, it is seen to be wrongly classified.
This method, as mentioned, is intended merely as a suggested means for effecting an entry. The correct identification of only four letters, as we have seen, will make enormous inroads into the contents of a cryptogram. ”

“ Those which are shorter will give more trouble; but it takes a very short cryptogram indeed to be really resistant.
Our foregoing cryptogram contains only 80 letters.
To apply “pointers” in this case, let us begin by considering the individual frequencies of the letters E T A O N I R S H. Their frequencies per 100, according to our own chart, are about as follows: E, 12; T, 10; A, 8; O, 8; N, 7; I, 7; R, 6; S, 7; H, 5. Thus, when frequency alone is considered, E and T have a tendency to draw away from the others and form a private high-frequency group of their own. ”

“ His son remarks that the loss to science was probably greatest in respect of the Cryptogamic collections; this naturally followed from the fact that already he had taken a prominent place as a student of the lower forms, and the field for their study was more open than among the flowering plants of the island. It was among the Cryptogams that Sir William found the theme of his first great work, the British Jungermanniae, published in 1816. Nearly a century after its appearance it still stands notable not only for the beauty of the analytical plates, but as a foundation for reference. ”

“ The mistake arose from the false idea that the stamens and pistils of flowering plants are sex-organs. The name Cryptogam, however, is convenient, although meaningless. Since the Pteridophytes have woody vessels, they are often called vascular Cryptogams, to distinguish them from Bryophytes and Thallophytes, which are Cryptogams without woody vessels. ”

“ Thus, when we find, in the present cryptogram, that the numbers 02, 53, and 63, have each a frequency of 2, it seems reasonable to suppose, for each number, that its two occurrences were in a single cipher alphabet; that is, that each one is a periodic repetition. Now, considering Fig. 133, and confining our observations, for the moment, to the number 02, we find that this number, in the cryptogram, occupies serial positions 49 and 154. Having first laid out a series of columns headed by the various possible periods, 2, 3, 4, 5. ”

“ Just as in flowering plants and in all the larger animals, however, the reproduction of young in cryptogams is a sexual process depending on the union of male and female. While in phanerogams that process may well be spoken of as visible marriage, with all the pageantry of insects and beautifully colored flowers, in cryptogams the process is not only a hidden marriage, its ways are sometimes so secret that, even in the common mushroom, the actual mating is conjectured rather than demonstrated. ”

“ He may provide himself, also, with non-pattern lists, on which words have given lengths but contain no repeated letters; and with “transposal lists” containing pairs of words (as NIGHT and THING) which use the same letters but not in the same order. It is true that such lists are troublesome to prepare, but they are extremely effective; they will break the most resistant of the “aristocrats” or the shortest example of legitimate cipher.
No matter how resistant the cryptogram, all that is really needed is an entry, the identification of one word, or of three or four letters. ”

“ Thus, there is never a time when it is impossible to see the tens and units as having been separately added; if we find, in a Nihilist cryptogram, the two numbers 29 and 87, with a difference greater than 4 in their respective tens-digits, we may say promptly that they were not enciphered with the same key; no digit whatever added to any two digits of the original square can produce a difference greater than 4. But if the two cryptogram numbers are 30 and 77, where the difference in the tens-digits appears, at first glance, to be only 4, the presence of the zero must be taken into account ”