32 
=a solitary seed, partly covered by a pulpy substance. Look at the 
so-called berry of juniper. It consists of a few scales which 
become fleshy and close over the seeds. Look now at an ordinary 
-cone, with, perhaps, scores of naked seeds, and the family tie 
-comes into view. It must be said, however, that while all botan- 
ists call juniper a Conifer, not a few have placed the yew and its 
‘near allies in a distinct order called Taxacee. Bentham and 
Hooker, the distinguished authors of ‘‘ Genera Plantarum,” a work 
which occupied many years in its production, includes the Taxads, 
and arranged Conifers in six sections, /hree of which are represented 
in the Flora of Great Britain, each one by only one genus, and 
-each genus by only one species. The species naturally produced 
here are the Scotch pine (Pinus sylvestris), the Juniper (Juntperus 
communis), and the Yew (Taxus Jaccata). Of that Scotch pine 
many thinzs might be said. It is naturalized in the South of 
England, but it belongs to Scotland, where it is still a feature, 
‘though not nearly as much asit once was. It formerly abounded. 
‘in Tveland too. It is rather plentiful in this neighborhood, pro- 
ducing cones very freely. Juniper is interesting to the distiller of 
-gin. It is usually a low shrub, but sometimes a small tree, found 
in many English counties. It did grow sparingly about here, but I 
should not be sure of finding it now. Its name is traceable to 
Latin words meaning “ youth renewing,” or ‘‘ young producing, ”’ 
because of the evergreen character of the genus. And the yew 
tree! What associations it has. Did not English archers in the 
olden time, fight and conquer with their bows of yew? Did they 
not continue to use the bow for a long time after the invention of 
gunpowder, and was there not often a space of some two or three 
‘hundred yards between the bowman and the mark whither his 
-arrow flew? On other grounds, much interest centres in the 
yew. It is not a light cheery-looking tree, but still a very long- 
lived one, and it has long been planted, as its branches have been 
carried, as an emblem of immortality. The words of Shakespeare 
are fitting in this connection, 
‘My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, 
Oh prepare it.” 
“The leaves of the yew are poisonous, but not so the scarlet so-called 
berry. But few conifers were introduced into this country before 
» the sixteenth century, and many of those that adorn our parks and 
“plantations are of recent introduction. Only some fifty or sixty 
years having passed since our landscape gardeners, in all parts of 
the country, were on the look-out for those new trees and shrubs 
which the bold enterprise of our fellow countrymen was making 
“known to them. The mammoth tree of California, now called 
Sequoia gigantea, but still better known as Wellingtonia gigantea, and 
