TO THE HISTORY OT CEETAIN CONIEEES 



209 



ever, appears to be a mistake. The tree is not Japanese so far as 



eastern 



yinces of China. It was introduced to this country by Fortune, 

 who called it a Larch (Lariai), although the scales of the cone, 

 instead of being persistent, "are so deciduous, that it is scarcely 

 possible to hold them together." 



Fig. 32. 



Cone of Pseudolarix Kcemjyferi, real size. Native. 



Fortune could not assent to its being called an Abies unless 

 Cedars and Larches are also referred to the same genus. "It 

 is," he says, ** apparently a plant exactly intermediate between 

 the Cedar and the Larch; it has deciduous cone-scales, like the 

 Cedar, and deciduous leaves like the Larch, and a habit some- 

 what of the one and somewhat of the other" (' Gardeners' Chro- 

 nicle,' 1855, p. 643). Gordon, recognizing its distinctness from 

 Abies, Cedar, or Larch, called it in his 'Pinetum* Pseudolarix 

 K(Bmpferiy thus putting it into a new genus, to which objection 

 was raised at the time on the score that the proposed name was 

 an " ill phrase — a vile phrase" ! 



A. Murray preferred to keep to Lindley's nomenclature, and 



LIKN. JOURN. — BOTANY, VOL. XXII. S 



