PINE FAMILY. 309 



P. nigra, Black P., of Eu., which is occasionally planted, and has spread- 

 ing brandies, larger leaves, more glutinous buds, &c. 



P. monilifera, Cotton-avood or Necklace P. Along the Great Lakes 

 and rivers, from L. Champlain W. and S. W. : large tree, with young branches 

 somewhat angled ; leaves dilated-triangular or slightly heart-shaped, taper- 

 pointed, serrate with cartilaginous incurved teeth and prominent lateral veins ; 

 fertile catkins very long and interrupted, theh' scales cut-fringed ; stigmas very 

 large, toothed. 



P. balsamifera, Balsam P. or Tacamahac. Middle-sized tree, wild 

 along our Northern borders and N. W. : has round or scarcely angled branch- 

 lets, very glutinous and pleasantly balsamic strong-scented bud-scales, and ovate 

 or lance-ovate gradually tapering leaves. 



Var. eandicans, Balm-of-Gilead P. : planted around dwellings as a 

 shade tree, wild in some places, spreading inveterately from the root ; appears 

 to be a variety of the Balsam Poplar, with broader ovate and often heart shaped 

 leaves lighter-colored beneath. 



Subclass IL GYMNOSPERMOUS : no closed ovary, style, 

 or stigma, but ovules and seeds naked on a scale or some other sort 

 of transformed leaf, or in Yew at the end of a scaly-bracted stalk ; 

 the mouth of the ovule receiving the pollen directly. (Lessons, p. 121, 

 fig. 264-266; p. 133, fig. 312-314.) Leaves not netted-veined. 



C^cas revoluta (Lessons, p. 19, fig. 47), from the southern part of 

 Japan, a palm-like low tree of conservatories, wrongly called Sago Palm, and 



Zamia integrifblia, the Coontie of Florida, the root-like trunk of 

 which does not rise above ground, and furnishes a kind of flour called Florida 

 Akrow-koot, represent the order Cycadace^. 



111. CONIFERS, PINE FAMILY.* 



Trees or shrubs, with wood of homogeneous fibre (no ducts), 

 resinous juice, commonly needle-shaped or awl-shaped leaves, and 

 monoecious or sometimes dicEcious flowers destitute of both calyx 

 and corolla, and in catkins or the like. (See Lessons, as above.) 



I. PINE FAMILY proper. These are true Coniferce, or 

 cone-bearing trees, the fertile flowers being in a scaly catkin which 

 becomes a strobile or scaly cone. The scales are each in the axil 

 of a bract (which is sometimes evident and projecting, but often 

 concealed in the full-grown cone), and bear a pair of ovules ad- 

 hering to their inner face next the base, the orifice downwards, 

 and the two winged seeds peel off the scale as the latter expands 

 at maturity. They all have scaly buds. All the common and 

 hardy trees of the family belong to the following. 



1. PINUS. Leaves persistent, long and needle-shaped, 2, 3, or 5 in a cluster from 

 the axil of dry bud-scales, developed after the scaly shoot of the season 

 lengthens. Sterile catkins clustered at the base of the shoot of the season : 

 each stamen answers to a flower, reduced to a 2-celled anther, with hardly 

 any filament. Cone woody, mostly large, maturing in the autumn of the 

 second year. Cotyledons of the embrvo several. (See Lessons, p. 18, fig. 

 45, 46; p. 72, fig. 140; p. 133, 144, fig. 312-314.) 



• For a particular account of the numerous trees of this noble family now planted or 

 beginning to be plantetl for ornament special works should be consulted, such, especially, as 

 the recent '• I5ook of Evergreens " by Mr. lloopes. We give here only the principal species 

 of the country, east of tlie Mississippi, and the well-established introduced species, mainly 

 such as arc fully hardy North. 



