GENERA OF TAXACEX AND CONIFER. 33 
KErTELEERIA. 
This genus was proposed by Carricre in the ‘ Revue Horticole,’ 
1866, p. 449, for the reception of the tree more generally known 
as Abies Fortunei. The history of this remarkable tree, up to 
1886, was summarized by myself in a paper published in the 
Journal of this Society, Bot. vol. xxii. p. 197. I then, like most 
of my predecessors, considered it a peculiar species of Abies. In 
1887, however, Professor Pirotta, of Rome, had an opportunity of 
examining the male flowers, some of which he kindly com- 
municated tome. The Italian professor came to the conclusion 
from this new evidence that Carri¢re’s genus Keteleeria should 
be maintained as distinct from Abies *. 
In addition to the other remarkable characteristics, such as the 
prominence of the midrib on the upper surface of the leaf, the 
male flowers were now seen to be in umbellate groups, quite 
unlike the solitary arrangement in Abies or Picea. Singularly 
enough this arrangement of the male flowers is met with also in 
Pseudolarie Kempferi, also an anomalous species, in Cunning- 
hamia and in Ginkgo, all Chinese or Japanese plants. The 
anthers of Keteleeria dehisce transversely as in Abies, and the 
pollen-grains are of the same shape as in that genus. 
The mode of germination of K. Davidiana, which I had the 
opportunity of examining at Kew in 1889, is unlike that of any 
species of Abies or Picea, and more closely resembles that of 
Podocarpus. The seedling plant is provided with two linear 
cotyledons as in that genus, whilst the resemblance of the adult 
foliage to that of Podocarpus has been frequently noticed. 
From anatomical reasons chiefly, Bertrand, Ann. Se. Nat. sér. 
V. xx. (1874) p. 87, described a second Chinese species as Pseudo- 
tsuga Davidianat. This is the plant whose mode of germination 
has just been alluded to. Franchet, in the ‘ Nouvelles Archives 
du Muséun,’ sér. II. 1884, t. 13, gave a fuller and more complete 
account of the same species under the name of Abies Davidiana. 
* Pirotta, “Sulla structura anatomica della Keteleeria Fortunci,” Ann. 
R. Istitut. di Roma, vol. iv. p. 200. 
t It is worthy of note that Bertrand gives the name Psewdotsuga to a sub- 
genus of Picea, but, nevertheless, he employs the subgeneric name in such a way 
as to induce the reader to consider it of generic value. 
LINN. JOURN.—BOTANY, VOL. XXX. D 
