Cypres

Cypres means near to it. Where a donor has in fact prescribed a particular mode of application and that mode is incapable of being performed but the donor had a charitable intention which transcended the particular mode of application prescribed, the court can carry out the charitable intention as thought the particular direction had not been expressed at all.  The principle does not apply where the particular mode of application was the essence of  his intention.

It is one of the cardinal rules governing execution of charitable trusts that the intention of the donor must be observed and is never allowed to defeat it.  The principle on which the doctrine of cypress rests is that the Court treats charity in the abstract as the substance of the gift and the particular disposition as the mode, so that in the eye of the court the gift not withstanding that the particular disposition may not be capable of execution subsists as a legacy which never fails and cannot lapse.  If the intention cannot be executed literally, another mode may be adopted consistent with the general intention of the author.