CYPRESS, Cupressus, a genus of plants of the order coniferce, the species of which are evergreen trees or shrubs, with small generally appressed and hnbricated leaves, and with almost globular cones, the scales of which bear numerous hard seeds. The best known species is the Commox C. (C sempervirens), a native of the Levant, the n. of Africa, and the s. of Europe, and sometimes met with in England. It is a tree of no great height, with quadrangular twigs. The leaves are dark green, and the tree hits, there fore, a somber aspect, and from very early times has been an emblem of mourning; the Greeks and Romans put its twigs in the coffins of the dead, they used it to indicate the house of mourning, and planted it about burial-grounds, as is still the custom in the east. The wood of the C. is yellow or reddish, and has a pleasant smell. It is very hard, compact, and durable; the ancients reckoned it indestructible; and the resin which it contains gives it the property of resisting for a long time the action of water. It is not liable to the attacks of insects, and was formerly much esteemed for the pur poses of the cabinet-maker. Some believe that the C. is the true cedar-wood of Scripture, and it has also been supposed that it is gopher wood. Specimens of this wood are in existence in museums, which are known to be several thousands of years old. The
doors of St. Peter's at Rome, made of C., lasted from the time of Constantine the great to that of pope Eugene IV., above 1100 years, and were perfectly sound when at last removed, that brazen ones might be substituted. Medicinal virtues were formerly ascribed both to the wood and seeds of the C., and the balsamic exhalations of the tree were reckoned very salutary in diseases of the chest.—Several other species of C. are natives of temperate and warns climates in different parts of the world. There are many species, the principal of which are the Portugal C. or cedar of Goa (a Lusi tanica), a native of Goa naturalized in Portugal; C. thurifera, a native of Mexico, which exudes a resin used in that country for incense; C. torulosa, a native of the Himalayas, and which has been grown successfully in Britain; a funebris, lately introduced into Britain from China; the white C., or white cedar of North America (C. thyoides). The deciduous C. or Virginian C. (tazodium distichum, or schubertl'a disticha) is now regarded as belonging to a different genus, and attaining a height of 120 ft., and found iu the cypress swamps of Delaware and elsewhere.