سرو

Iranian gardens are organized around cypresses. The classical Persian garden has four water channels, four quadrants, and at the corners or along the central axis a row of cypresses provides the vertical line. The cypress also appears on Persian carpets, on miniatures, and in the architecture of cemeteries and shrines. Modern Iranian families often plant a cypress when a child is born, and the tree grows alongside the person. The literal and poetic senses of the word reinforce each other: every Iranian who has stood under a cypress in a courtyard has the literal image, and every educated Iranian who has read classical poetry has the metaphor. The two layers stay live in the language.