CYPRESSUS or Cupressus, a very tall strait Tree, that is produced with great difficulty, the fruit of it is of no use, its leaves are bitter, and the very smell and shade of it are dangerous: Arbor natu morosa, fructu supervacua, baccis torva, folio amara, odore violenta ac ne umbra quidem gratiosa, says Pliny1. Hence it was, that the Romans looked upon it to be a fatal Tree, and made use of it at Funerals, and in mournful Ceremonies. The wood of the Cypress Tree is always green, very heavy, of a good smell, and never either rots, or is worm-eaten, no more than that of Cedar, Ebony, Yew, Box, and of the Olive Tree. It is averse to Dunghills and watery places, which kill it. The Cypress Tree is distinguished into Male and Female: The Branches of the first are as it were horizontal, and those of the Female are upright; and from this latter it is that People generally take for Palissades of Gardens, and to make Pyramids. The fruit of the Cypress Tree is round, of an Olive colour, and as large as Nuts when they are ripe, and it grows in separate places. The Latins call it Conus, because of its figure. This Fruit is composed of a kind of Scales, in the clefts whereof are hidden little Seeds that are flat and angular. This Tree grows very well from the Seed, and comes on apace. The Cypress Tree is common on Mount Libanus2; and the sacred Writers sometimes draw Comparisons from it, as a beautiful and large Tree. I was exalted like a cedar in Ecclus. xxiv. 13.Libanus, and as a cypress tree upon the mountains of Hermon. Mount Hermon made a part of Libanus. And in another place, Simon son of Onias the High- Ecclus. l. 10. Cant. i.17.Priest appeared as a fair olive-tree budding forth fruit, and as a cypress-tree, which groweth up to the clouds. The Spouse in the Canticles says, The beams of our house are cedar, and our rafters of cypress, in the Hebrew, Beroth, which by many is interpreted Fir; but it signifies more properly a sort of Cypress called Bruta, which has the smell and solidity of Cedar, but does not grow so tall3.
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