PINACEAE. 9 



14. TAXUS. 



Evergreen trees or shrubs with spirally arranged, short- 

 petioled linear flat leaves, spreading so as to appear two-ranked; 

 aments very small, axillary and solitary, sessile or nearly so; 

 staminate aments consisting of a few scaly bracts and 5-8 

 stamens; ovules solitary, axillary, erect, subtended by a fleshy 

 ring-shaped disk; fruit consisting of the fleshy disk which 

 becomes cup-shaped, red and nearly encloses the bony seed. 



Taxus brevifolia Nutt. Western Yew. Small tree, 4-10 m. high, some- 

 times much larger, the bark loose and reddish; branches slender, horizontal 

 or drooping; leaves horizontal, 1-2 cm. long, linear, acuminate, cuspidate, 

 with revolute margins, shiny green above, glaucous beneath, abruptly narrowed 

 at the base into a short petiole; staminate aments globose, 3 mm. broad; fruit 

 bright red, insipid in taste; stone broadly ovate, acute, somewhat flattened, 

 3-4 mm. long. Along streams in the mountains. 



Family 8. PINACEAE. Pine Family. 

 Resinous trees or shrubs, mostly with evergreen narrow entire 

 or scale-like leaves; pollen sacs and ovules borne in separate 

 spikes (aments); usually monoecious, rarely dioecious; ovules 

 solitary or several together on the surface of a scale, which is in 

 the axil of a bract in most genera; fruit a cone with numerous, 

 several or few woody papery or fleshy scales ; seed wingless or 

 winged. 



Scales of the cones few (3-12); leaf-buds naked. 



Fruit fleshy and berry-like. 15. Juniperus, 9. 



Fruit a dry cone. 16. Thuja, 10. 



Scales of the cone numerous; leaf-buds scaly. 



Leaves clustered on very short lateral branchlets. 

 Cone-scales woody; leaves needle-shaped, 



2-5 in a sheath, persistent. 17. Pinus, 10. 



Cone-scales thin; leaves filiform, clustered, but 



not in sheaths, deciduous. 18. Larix, 11. 



Leaves scattered on the branches. 



Branchlets rough from the prominent persistent 



leaf-bases; bracts smaller than the scales. 19. Picea, 11. 

 Branchlets smooth; leaf-scars not prominent; 

 bracts longer than the cone-scales. 

 Cones erect; scales deciduous; leaves sessile. 20. Abies, 11. 

 Cones pendulous; scales persistent; leaves 



petioled. 21. Pseudotsuga, 12. 



15. JUNIPERUS. Juniper. 



Evergreen shrubs or small trees; leaves scale-like or needle-like, 

 opposite or in whorls of three; flowers dioecious or monoecious, 

 small and lateral; anther-cells 3-6, attached to the lower edge of 

 the shield-shaped scale; ovule-bearing aments ovoid, of 3-6 

 fleshy coalescent scales, each 1-ovuled, in fruit forming a bluish- 

 black berry. 



