THREE CONIFERS 237 



inquiry has led to the discovery that this Orizaba plant is in all 

 probability the long-lost Chamaciji^aris thurifera. Botteri sent 

 them home without one word of information, but with a small 

 dried specimen, from which we learn that he found it in a culti- 

 vated state. Being a true Gliamacijparis, and only one from 

 Mexico being known to botanists, the inference that we have at 

 last the true plant of Humboldt seems inevitable. In that great 

 philosopher's work, above quoted, it is said to be a very tall 

 resinous tree with spreading branches, whose timber is used for 

 building purposes. The young seedlings in the Garden of the 

 Horticultural Society are very glaucous, with almost the aspect of 

 a Thuya. How far they may be able to bear this climate remains 

 to be ascertained." 



Now, as the wingless character of the seeds of Lindley's 

 specimen, in conjunction with the non-peltate nature of the cone- 

 scales, excludes it from Gupressiis and ChamcBcyixiris respectively, it 

 must be a Tlmya, and one which, though agreeing with C. (Biota) 

 orientalls in its foliar characters, merits, on account of its peculiar 

 cones and seeds, at least, in view of its reputed garden origin, 

 varietal rank. 



It might have been premised that these fruit distinctions 

 would be ultimately correlated with peculiarities in the disposition 

 or shape of the leaves, but such is not the case ; the latter have 

 remained stable, and show no salient points of distinction from 

 Thuya orientalis, a plant of great horticultural age, which no 

 doubt had even penetrated into so little known a region as Orizaba 

 in Mexico, where possibly the change in edaphic and climatic 

 factors evoked this mutant. Its cones are solitary, subsessile, 

 light brown in colour, and subglobose and ^^ in. across, are com- 

 posed of six non-peltate decussately arranged scales, which are 

 slightly fused at the base, the larger outer being suborbicular, 

 obovate or subrhombic in general outline, |-y\ in. long, ^'W-i in. 

 broad, with a small scarcely perceptible dorsal process, and" slight 

 longitudinal depression below it, their inner faces being marked at 

 the base by the scars of attachment of one to three seeds ; the 

 inner scales are not narrower, narrowly obpyramidate and quad- 

 rangular, their apices flattish and slanting, with a small median 

 process. The seeds are wingless, greyish brown and smooth, 

 4-6 mm. long, obliquely ovoid, obscurely 3-4 angled, bevelled 

 on one side at the base, and opposite to this a semicircular 

 lighter coloured scar. Hence the cones differ from typical Thuya 

 orientalis in their smaller more globose shape, their light brown 

 colour (no glaucous sheen being apparent), the different confor- 

 mation of the scales, the absence of the horn-like dorsal recurved 

 processes, so conspicuous a feature of the type, and the much 

 smaller seeds, which in Thuya orientalis measure up to 8 mm. in 

 length, and do not possess the peculiar basal bevelling charac- 

 terising the latter. 



_ The plants raised in the Chiswick Gardens from the seeds of 

 this variety doubtless perished, for no Thuya bearing such cones 

 has ever been alluded to in horticultural literature, as far as the 



