GENERA OF TAXACEE AND CONIFERS. 17 
has not been taken up by any subsequent writer, it is more con- 
venient to follow the generally adopted course and make use of 
Endlicher’s name of Widdringtonia. 
The species differ from those of Callitris, to which they are 
sometimes referred,in habit and foliage, the branches being terete, 
the leaves opposite and decussate (not in whorls of three), or in 
the fast-growing shoots spirally arranged. The appearance of 
the inarticulated branchlets is more like that of Thuya or 
Cupressus, owing to some of the leaves being less concrescent 
than is the case in Callitris. The male catkins are terminal 
and very small, the anther-crest ovate, pointed, the anther-cells 
2-3. .The female cones in W. cupressoides are arranged along 
the sides of the branches, each cone subtended by a deltoid leaf. 
The cone-scales are four in number, equal or nearly so, decus- 
sate, or even somewhat spirally arranged, at first corky in 
substance, tubercled, and spreading to expose the young ovules, 
ultimately very thick, woody, and closed over the seeds. The 
seeds are thick, ovoid or trigonous, narrowly winged. 
Two species are South-African ; one has been discovered in 
Madagascar, one in Kaffraria (Baur, 1164), and one quite 
recently on the mountains of Equatorial Africa. Prof. Hen- 
riques, of Coimbra, has also favoured me with imperfect specimens 
from the Serra de Gorungosa at an altitude of 5300 feet, which 
appear to belong to this genus. 
Endlicher’s description of the female inflorescence is rather 
misleading, as tending to the inference that the female flowers 
are terminal instead of lateral. 
Several fossil species are described from the Tertiary formations 
_by Renault, ‘Cours de Botanique Fossile,’ Coniféres, p. 131. 
The genus is included in Taxodinee by Parlatore, but the cone- 
scales are not spiral, neither is the bract externally visible. It 
seems, therefore, most in place among Callitrine, or as inter- 
mediate between that tribe and Thuine. 
FirzrRoya. 
A genus established by Sir Joseph Hooker, in 1852, in the 
Journal of the Horticultural Society of London, vi. p. 264, upon 
an evergreen tree, native of Chile and Patagonia. To this was 
afterwards added by Bentham a Tasmanian plant previously 
referred by Hooker to his genus Dtselma (Flor. Tasman. i. p. 353, 
t. 98). The leaves, so far as known, are homomorphic, arranged 
LINN. JOURN.— BOTANY, VOL. X¥X. c 
