TREE OF THE MONTH - JULY 2017: ITALIAN CYPRESS

Road with Cypress - Vincent van Gogh [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The Cypresses are confusing. They are in the Cupressaceae - the biggest living conifer family of thirty genera - including Junipers, Thuja, Swamp Cypress, Redwoods and Dawn Redwood - amongst others. Cypresses themselves are separated into 16 species of True Cypress (Cupressus) and 6 species of False Cypress (Chamaecyparis). To make matters worse the two can hybridise (the infamous Leylandii) and they should probably be lumped together. Worse still, they can be very similar in appearance and there are countless varieties and cultivars. I gave up any hope of learning them many moons ago.

There is no particular reason why a Cypress is our Tree of the Month for July - they pretty much do what they do all year round, but a study for the Department of the Environment in 1993 found that the commonest town trees in England were 'Cypress types' and so I should include them in the blog at some juncture. They comprised an astonishing 22% of the urban tree population (the next most common species was Sycamore at 8%). They certainly have their uses but many an English gardener has underestimated their speed of growth and potentially huge size and  after decades of dealing with the wrong Cypress in the wrong place, or neighbours at war over a 'monster hedge', I have a slightly jaundiced appreciation of them.

Wheat Field with Cypress Vincent van Gogh [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

But I focus on just one True Cypress this month, the classic Cypress of the Ancients, namely the Italian, Mediterranean or Graveyard Cypress (Cupressus sempervirens - which translates as ever living). After all, these were a favourite of Van Gogh, featuring prominently in a number of his paintings, so they must have something to them. Mind you, he did have some mental health issues at the time - he painted 'Road with Cypress and Star' (heading image) in the months before his suicide. 'Wheat Field with Cypress' and 'Starry Night ' were painted the previous year while  he was committed to an asylum in the south of France.  He wrote to his brother Theo that the trees were 'a dark patch in a sun drenched landscape' and that they were 'one of the most interesting of dark notes'.

The 'dark notes' seen by Van Gogh might be a clue to the tree's long association with death - it is common to Christian and Islamic graveyards throughout the Mediterranean and Persia where it is a symbol of mourning. Such is the association that it is also known as the Graveyard Cypress.

Ovid tells of the boy Cyparissus who accidentally killed his favourite companion, a sacred stag, with his javelin. He cries so much that his blood drains away, his limbs turn green and his hair stiffens and points upwards; he turns into a Cypress tree so that he may mourn ever more. Egyptian mummies were entombed in Cypress caskets, the ashes of Greek heroes placed in Cypress urns, and the foliage is commonly added to funeral pyres to scent the air.

Cypresses at Isola di San Michele - Venice's Island of Dead - image by Megan Belt: apassportaffair.com

Italian Cypress distribution. Image by Giovanni Caudullo, Gianni Della Rocca [CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The precise origins of the tree are uncertain since it has traveled with man since ancient times. The map shows its probable original range in green, its ancient but synanthropic (man assisted) range in orange and remnant natural stands in red. In these regions it has become an iconic feature of landscapes, gardens, temples and, of course, cemeteries. You may well associate it with  holiday destinations - certainly it reminds me of fabulous Tuscany.

Pencil thin Italian Cypress 'Stricta' lining a Tuscan Road

The natural form of the tree can be quite broad but there is a long history, dating from the Romans, of selecting for the narrower forms known as the Cupressus sempervirens 'Stricta' group. Cultivars grown from cuttings are marketed under various names like 'Green Pencil', 'Green Spire', 'Nitschke's Needle' and even a golden form raised in Australia, 'Swaynes Gold' . In both broad and narrow form the tree spread from the Mediterranean basin to Italy, Spain, east to Iran, and south to Tunisia. They became the 'must-haves' in Mesopotamia, Roman villas and in the gardens of Muslim rulers of central and western Asia, Persians and Ottomans. It features on Persian rugs, pottery and on tiles in the Blue Mosque. The tree was introduced to Britain in the 15th Century and it can be a useful addition to our palette in formal situations. But it doesn't belong in our countryside; an Englishman's trees don't spear the sky, they billow into it thank you. And they look best in bright sunshine anyway....

The Italian Cypress can live for hundreds of years, reaching 45m height in favourable conditions. At Somma, in Lombardy, there grew what was, perhaps, the most famous tree in Europe. It was the broader form and grew close to the Simplon road, which Napoleon is said to have diverted in order to save it. This tree, which was reputed to have been planted before the birth of Christ, was blown down in a storm on 2nd September 1944.

Constructing Noah's Ark - oil painting circa 1555. Was Gopherwood timber from Cypress?

The timber is very durable. It has been suggested as the gopherwood used to build Noah's Ark; Plato's Laws were engraved on Cypress tablets and, according to Loudon, the doors of St Peter's in Rome were made from the wood and they were still sound when removed after 1100 years. In the Middle Ages the timber was much used for making chests for clothes because it imparted a pleasant scent - and it was the scent that caused John Evelyn to recommend its use for doors and fences in plague infested London, thinking it countered the unhealthy air.

Sources:
Carey F. The Tree, Meaning and Myth. 2012
Land Use Consultants: Trees in Towns. 1993
Stafford F. 2016. The Long Long Life of Trees