204 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
cone of half an inch in length, and of an average diameter of one- 
third of an inch. These young cones are, so to speak, still in the 
herbaceous state, and they bend with the slightest pressure. By 
the month of July in the following year the cones have acquired 
a woody consistency, and enclose seeds of perfect maturity; but 
they do not begin to shed their seed till the autumn rains, and 
some cones retain their scales even till the end of winter.” 
My conclusion from these statements is—that the flowers of the 
Cedar of Lebanon usually ripen in the climate of Paris in the 
course of the month of October; that the cones remain twenty- 
four months upon the tree before they shed their scales and seeds; 
that the time at which the scales and seeds fall varies from the 
twenty-fourth to the thirtieth month, if the information which I 
have procured is correct ; and lastly, that when the seed does not 
fall till after the winter, or till towards the end of a mild winter, 
it begins to sprout in the cones, 
Loudon says (Arboretum, vol, iv., p. 2423) that the cones of the 
cedar do not attain maturity till the third autumn, and that they 
may be gathered and preserved for five or six years, without 
the seed being impaired. This last statement seems to me an 
error, if it refers to cones gathered shortly before the fall of 
the scales, and especially if they did not fall till after the 
winter, for then the seeds have already begun to undergo the 
process of germination; but if they have been gathered some 
months before this period, they will remain healthy in the cones 
for a longer or shorter time, which, however, I cannot indicate, 
even approximately. According to the same author (vol. iv., 
p. 2404), the cedar does not bear cones until it is twenty-five to 
thirty years old, and that the most of the seed then produced is 
barren; and that only from cones of older trees is fertile seed 
obtained. He says that some cedars bear only male flowers, 
others only female, but that some produce both, and these obser- 
vations have been made on cedars more than one hundred years 
old. Thus some of these trees would have diccious flowers. M. 
Zenou has observed the same thing in the Algerian cedar forests, 
and has mentioned it in the paper already quoted. There are, 
says Loudon, in his Arboretum, vol. iv., p. 2404, “some cedars at 
Whitton and Pepperharrow, and in other places, which although 
more than one hundred years old, and in a vigorous condition, 
have scarcely yet borne male and female flowers.” 
Miller says that four cedars, which were planted in 1683, when — 
