SKETCH OF THE CONIFERS OF JAFAN. 



415 



descriptions of these trees, therefore, on these points, may, for 

 anything that now appears to the contrary, be combined into one ; 

 by ^hich process we should have a more complete description of 

 all the parts of one tree. 



To supply this, we borrow from their description of A. liovioUpis 

 their account and figures of the female catkins : 

 i "Female catkins, lateral, solitary, proceeding from the axil- 

 lary buds, which are densely clothed with imbricated scales 

 (fig. 80.) Scales as in the flower-bearing buds, but the inner- 

 most longest, oblong, membranaceous, flaccid, purpurescent. The 

 catkins themselves sessile, one to two inches long, cylindrical, 

 obtuse, then bent, or oftener curved. The bracts and scales 

 numerous densely imbricated, unguiculated, and orbicular 

 rounded (fig. 81) ; after fecundation of equal size and entirely like 



■ 



Fig. 81. 



each other; lateral margins irregularly dentate and crenulated,with 

 radiated nervures, smooth, almost coriaceous, of a fine red colour." 

 Another figure of the cone of T.firma, from a drawing by Mr. 

 J. G. Yeitch, is here given to illustrate a phase of its form 

 different from that placed at the head of this description. 



Before leaving the Piceas, a pseudo-Japanese species has to be 

 noticed, which is enveloped in an amount of mystery and confu- 

 sion which had better be dissipated. It is the Abies Jezoensis of 

 Lindley and later authors, but not the Abies Jezoensis of the 

 earlier describers, Siehold and Zuccarini. 



To understand the history of this species, it is necessary, in 

 the first place, to mention that Siebold and Zuccarini, in describing 

 their species in 184^, described it from the leaves and a nascent 

 cone. The want of this cone, and a misunderstanding as to 

 its true locality, have done all the mischief; but it is right also to 

 say that it was probably increased by a discrepancy between 

 their coloured figure of the branchlets, which represented the 

 phyllulse and pulvini as those of a silver fir instead of a spruce 



