TAXACER, SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 55 
TUMION. 
FLowers naked, diccious, solitary, axillary ; stamens numerous; filaments dilated 
above into 4 anthers connate into a half ring; ovule solitary, erect, surrounded by 
a fleshy aril becoming confluent with the woody testa of the seed. Leaves lanceolate, 
alternate, spreading in two ranks, persistent. 
Tumion, Rafinesque, Amen. Nat. 63 (1840). — Greene, i. 111.— Baillon, Hist. Pl. xii. 31.— Masters, Jour. 
Pittonia, ii. 193. Linn. Soc. xxx. 5. 
Torreya, Arnott, Ann. Nat. Hist. i. 130 (not Rafinesque, Caryotaxus, Henkel & Hochstetter, Syn. Nadelh. 365 
Sprengel, nor Eaton) (1838). — Endlicher, Gen. Suppl. i. (1865). 
1373. — Meisner, Gen. 353. — Bentham & Hooker, Gen. Feoetataxus (Nelson) Senilis, Pinacee, 167 (1866). 
iii, 431. — Eichler, Engler & Prantl Pflanzenfam. ii. pt. 
Glabrous fcetid or pungent-aromatic trees, with fissured bark, close-grained light-colored wood, 
ovate acute ternate buds in the axils of the upper leaves, the lateral rather smaller than the central, 
covered with numerous imbricated scales, increasing in size from below upward, the outer long-persistent 
on the base of the branchlet, those of the inner ranks scarious, accrescent, often erose on the margins, 
verticillate or opposite, spreading or drooping branches, slender terete branchlets marked in their fifth 
or sixth year with small slightly elevated oval transverse scars of fallen leaves, and fibrous roots. 
Leaves disposed in a subspiral, distichously spreading and suberect by the twisting of the short 
compressed petioles, lnear-lanceolate, thin, gradually narrowed at the apex into long sharp rigid callous 
points, and abruptly contracted at the base, slightly rounded on the back, ecarinate, bisulcate below 
with a broad or narrow stomatiferous groove on each side of the midvein, revolute and slightly 
thickened on the entire margins, covered with a thick epidermis, dark green and lustrous on the upper 
surface, often rather paler on the lower; resin-canal solitary, central; fibro-vascular bundle semilunar, 
surrounded by an epiderm with thick-walled cells. Flowers appearing in very early spring, the 
staminate crowded in adjacent axils from globose buds formed in the autumn on branchlets of the year, 
and covered with numerous closely imbricated decussate ovate acute thick scales yellow tinged with red 
below, increasing in size from below upward, persistent, the inner accrescent, thin, erose on the 
margins; the pistillate scattered, and less numerous in the axils of leaves of the year or of the previous 
year, covered with broadly ovate rounded or apiculate thinner scales persistent under the fruit. 
Staminate flower ovoid or oblong, composed of six or eight close whorls, each of four divaricate 
stamens, subverticillately arranged on a slender subsessile axis, surrounded at the base by the persistent 
bud-scales ; filaments short, flattened and expanded above into four globose pendulous anthers connate 
into a half ring, two-valved, introrse, their connective produced above the cells, shghtly dilated, often 
denticulate on the upper margin ; pollen-grains globose. Pistillate flower sessile, surrounded by the bud- 
scales, composed of a single orthotropous ovule, surrounded by and finally inclosed in an ovate fleshy 
urceolate sack, becoming at maturity an ovoid or obovate drupe-like purple or green fruit short-pointed 
at the apex, and separating when ripe from the basal scales persistent on a short stout peduncle, with a 
thin resinous leathery purple or green outer coat, developed from the aril-lke covering of the ovule, 
closely investing the seed. Seed ovoid, acute at both ends, apiculate at the apex, marked at the base 
by the large conspicuous dark hilum ; testa thick and woody ; tegmen membranaceous or laminate, its 
