502 SATUREIA SCHINUS 



shaped at the base, the five lobes awl-shaped, and of unequal length. 

 Corolla very pale purple or whitish, two-lipped, J to J in. long ; stamens 

 four. The whole plant has a pleasant, aromatic, thyme-like odour. 



Native of S. Europe ; cultivated for centuries in Britain as a culinary 

 herb for seasoning and flavouring. It likes a warm, dry soil, and is easily 

 propagated by division or cuttings. 



SAXEGOTH^A CONSPICUA, Lindley. PRINCE ALBERT'S YEW. 



TAXACE^E. 



A low, evergreen tree, sometimes 40 ft. high, with the aspect of a 

 small-leaved yew ; habit bushy, dense, and rounded ; branches drooping ; 

 branchlets usually in whorls; bark of trunk peeling. Leaves linear or 

 linear-lanceolate, -J to i in. long, # in. wide ; abruptly narrowed at the 

 base to a short stalk ; tapered more gradually at the apex to a very fine 

 point ; dull dark green above, with two comparatively broad, glaucous 

 bands of stomata beneath. Male and female flowers on the same plant ; 

 the former in shortly stalked, cylindrical spikes J in. long, produced in a 

 cluster near the end of the shoot. The fruit is a small cone, solitary at 

 the end of 'the twigs, globose in the main, J in. diameter; the scales 

 terminating in a broad, flattened, spine-like point. 



Native of Chile; introduced in 1849 by W. Lobb for Messrs Veitch. 

 Although similar to the yew, and indeed related to it, this has a very 

 different fruit. In fruit it differs also from Prumnopitys, which it more 

 closely resembles in leaf even than the yew; it can, however, be 

 distinguished by the always pointed leaves and the much more con- 

 spicuous lines on their under-surface. The Saxegothaea (this is the only 

 species known) is not of great value in gardens. Lindley observed of 

 it that it had "the male flowers of a podocarp, the female flowers of a 

 Dammara, the fruit of a juniper, the seed of a Dacrydium, and the general 

 aspect of a yew." Even allowing for Lindley's desire to say something 

 striking, this statement shows that it is a tree of remarkable interest. It 

 was named in honour of Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria. There 

 are trees in the south-western counties 39 to 40 ft. high, which are the 

 finest in the British Isles. At Kew it grows extremely slowly, and of three 

 plants, two were killed in February 1895, when 30 to 32 of frost were 

 registered. The third recovered and has never since been injured. 

 Cuttings strike fairly readily in mild heat. 



SCHINUS. ANACARDIACE.E. 



Under cultivation in the open air, only one, or at most two, species of 

 this genus are sufficiently hardy to thrive. These are evergreen shrubs, 

 with the shoots often becoming spine-tipped, and the leaves alternate. 

 Flowers very small and numerous on short racemes, yellowish or white. 

 Fruit a round, one-seeded drupe. The genus is most nearly allied to 



