222 TAXODINEiE 



not the real leaves of the plant, but are a sort of 

 herbaceous branchlet, of a " neither fish, nor flesh, 

 nor good red herring " nature, neither true leaf nor 

 branchlet, but a mixture of both called Cladodes or 

 Phylloids by botanists. The real article, the true 

 leaves — or, may we say, the apologies for leaves ? — 

 are minute-looking brown scales, growing appressed 

 and decurrent to the stem, in the same way as they 

 grow on the Cypress, and ending in an obtuse point. 

 Altogether the whole story points to a great come- 

 down in the glorious career of leaves in general. 

 Their familiar green glories, their whole being, their 

 very purity of descent, in the case of this tree, seem 

 to have been merged in what appears to most as 

 lifeless likenesses of their former selves, which 

 botanists, as we have said, mysteriously call Cladodes, 

 or Phylloids, and which, loosely interpreted from dead 

 language origin, seems to imply a branchlet or leaf, 

 with a screw loose somewhere in its composition. 



In its family history this tree seems as forlorn of near 

 relations as any waif or stray in a foundling hospital ; 

 but, as sometimes even the most desolate of derelicts 

 may light upon a haven, so has our friend the Sciado- 

 pitys found his city of refuge. It has formally been 

 received into the rather menagerie, come-one-come-all 

 household of the Taxodinese, and been adopted by 

 them as one of their number. 



Once in the day of its early introduction to western 

 civilization, we read that it carried on and made 

 overtures of alliance with the members of the Yew 

 family, but that from that prim household it was 

 promptl}^ ejected. Perhaps some day it may be as 

 summarily dismissed from its present asylum, as was 

 the Gingko from the Salisburineae, and given a family 

 name of its own. To the more uninitiated, it certainly 

 seems deserving of a place in an isolation hospital. 



If any plant in the world was entitled to claim 



