Wo — 
"eB. mm 
YIEW OF THE GENUS CUPRESSUS. 313 
a peltate expansion at the free end. All the developed scales of 
the cone are fertile, and each bears in its axil either numerous 
seeds or only two or three, as in the subgenus Chamecyparis. The 
genus Tuya, which is the nearest ally and which has similar 
foliage, differs in the form of the cone-scales. The cones of Tuya 
are usually oblong, and the scales are also oblong, sometimes 
clavately thickened at the end but never peltate, and only certain 
of them are fertile. If the two genera had not been so long 
established and so generally adopted, it might have been well to 
have included them in one genus, together with Libocedrus, as 
in all probability all of these have diverged from a common stock. 
The confusion this would entail in practice would, however, be 
so great as to outweigh any advantage that would accrue from 
such an arrangement, theoretically preferable though it might 
be. The following scheme may serve to represent the near 
relationships of Cupressus :— 
oe 
rye Fitzroya. 
N HL Ji uniperus. 
Subgenus Chamecyparis. 
Cup ressus. 
Although the generic characters are well-marked, the case is 
far otherwise in regard to the species. These are few in number, 
but so variable that it is difficult to find characters, or to draw 
up a description that shall apply to the individual plant in all 
cases. 
Moreover, each individual plant is polymorphic, that is, it 
assumes different appearances at different periods of its growth 
(see fig. 1, p. 314). These “stages of growth " are usually transi- 
tory and their existence brief, but, occasionally, their duration is 
prolonged and they become more or less persistent. If the whole 
or the greater part of the plant be in the same stage of growth 
at the same time, the appearance is so different from that 
z2 
