i84 CYPRESSES AND JUNIPERS 



situations could be bettered for the beautiful by 

 making judicious use of its stately and formal shape. 



What the Lombardy Poplar has accomplished for 

 the Plains of Lombardy as seen from Milan Cathedral, 

 what it has done to beautify our rich, low-lying 

 valleys of England, so equally can the well-placed 

 Libocedrus play an ornament role in many places of 

 our grounds and gardens. 



Of the Libocedrus group which appears in our own 

 Table, when we come to call the muster-roll and 

 reckon the rarities as absentees, the task of identifying 

 becomes lightened. Of the eight mentioned, three 

 are not introduced, three are very rare, and the 

 Chilensis only seems to flourish under exceptional 

 climatic conditions. This leaves us, then, only more 

 or less confronted with the botanical details of one 

 specimen, the Libocedrus Decurrens, to contend with." 

 The long length of their leaves, appressed to the stem, 

 the vertical growth of their branches, the attenuated 

 lengthy appearance of the tree as a whole, their 

 unlike-any-other terminal cones, render them easy 

 of recognition. Should you chance on a rarity of 

 their race — and we think it would only be on the 

 rarest of rare occasions — the differences alluded to in 

 the Table should not present insuperable difficulties 

 to those students who have gone far enough in their 

 observational career to know that a Libocedrus is a 

 Libocedrus. We should here call attention to the 

 fact that the Libocedri break away from the Thuya 

 conditions in two points: (i) A greater number of 

 stamens in the male flower. (2) And secondly, 

 which is the more easily apprehended of the two, 

 in the matter of cone construction. Whereas the 

 scales of the true Thuya are more or less of equal 

 size and overlap each other, the scales of the cones 

 of the Libocedri are of unequal size, and do not over- 

 lap, but are united by the margins only. To it 



