THE FIK-TUEE FAMILY. 461 



1. Pine-trees (genus Pinus). Most of the species placed here are spreading 

 and flat-headed trees. The leaves are needle-shaped, several inches long, and 

 grow two, three, or five together, surrounded at the base by brownish sheaths. 

 The cones are oval and generally erect, with their scales woody and much thick- 

 ened at the extremity. The young shoots aie perpendicular to the ground, 

 standing up like long green fingers, whatever the angle of the branches with 

 the trunk. 



2. Fir-trees (genus Abies). In figure these are conical or steeple-shaped; the 

 leaves are needle-shaped, solitary, and more or less two-ranked; the cones aro 

 pendent, their scales thin and paper-Hke, without any thickening at the extremity; 

 and the young shoots spread out horizontally. 



3. Silver- firs (genus Picea). These differ from the true firs in their erect 

 cones, and decidedly two-ranked leaves, silvery underneath. 



The Larch (Larix) and the Cedar (Cedrus) are distinguished from all the 

 preceding by their short and deciduous leaves growing in dense tufts. The 

 scales of the cones are like those of the fir-trees, thin and paper-like. 



II.— CUPEESSINEiE. 

 The CupressinePD (with the exception of the great Taxodiujn dis- 

 tichum) are low shrubs or small trees ; their branches are not disposed 

 in regular whorls ; and ftie leaves (except in the junipers) are very 

 minute, scale-like, and closely pi'essed against the surface of the 

 branches and twigs. The flowers also are very minute, and the 

 cones of a difierent form from those of the Abietinea), and called 

 galbuli. The principal genera are characterised as follows : — 

 Fruit a dry galbulus. Leaves appressed. 



Scales one-flowered ; galbulus angular Ciipressus. 



Scales two-flowered ; galbulus winged Thuja. 



Fruit berry-like, in consequence of the scales of the galbulus be- 

 coming fleshy. Leaves linear and spreading Juniperus. 



The only indigenous species of the Coniferae are the common juniper 

 and the Scotch fir, the latter abundant in Dunham Park, at Alderley, 

 and in parks and plantations generally. At one period it was pro- 

 bably truly wild in our neighbourhood. Two others, the larch and 

 the Norway spruce-fir, are now so general in the same and similar 

 places that they have quite as much the appearance of aborigines. 

 These three are the only common ones, except in choice gardens and 

 pleasure-grounds, and, though several others produce blossoms, the 

 only three that ripen their cones. It is not improbable that in a few 

 years others will be planted quite as extensively, especially the incom- 

 parable DcodCtra, already so beautiful on the hills between Coniston 

 and Hawkshead, where these grand trees grow, rejoicing in the moun- 

 tain air, as freely as upon their own Himalayahs. 



