198 TAXODINEiE AND ARAUCARINE.E 



of these neighbouring tribes bear resemblance to the 

 Taxodinese. 



This group of Taxodinese trees comprise (as far as 

 we are concerned with here), six different species ; 

 the Athrotaxis, the two Sequoias, the Cryptomerias, 

 the Deciduous Cypress, and the Japanese Umbrella 

 Tree (Sciadopitys Verticillata). 



The points of difference between the various 

 members of this little confraternity are so apparent, 

 and the points of resemblance so un-apparent to the 

 ordinary man, that no effort on the part of any 

 intelligence department need be called upon to 

 discriminate between them. The puzzle, indeed, is 

 to find the links that bind, not the distance that 

 divides, and these are points to be sought for in the 

 more minute points of flower and cone structure. 



The members of this little coterie of alikes yet 

 unlikes .originate from different and widely scattered 

 geographical regions, but they have one point in 

 common. They, all of them, date back to remote 

 geological periods, and all of them somehow look as 

 if they did. They all of them appear as if they 

 once had an intimate connection with and a direct 

 interest in those dark, dank, dismal places, that 

 " wetter wet and slimier slime " (as Rupert Brooke, 

 the poet, describes such scenes and haunts), which 

 pictures only have made us acquainted with, and 

 where the great Amphibia of a carboniferous system — 

 from all we hear — were wont to wander and to wade- 



They all of them wear an old-world look. In the 

 Sequoias, the scattered leaves that cling to the older 

 stems like barnacles to a hulk, have a left and for- 

 gotten expression of appearance, as if their presence 

 were unwelcome among the newer generations of 

 foliage, as if their dinginess were hardly in keeping 

 with the brighter green of the more closely clustered 

 leaves that grow upon the latest edition of the new 



