THE VARIETY OF PLANT LIFE 101 



The Gymnosperms as a class are chiefly woody shrubs and 

 trees of an evergreen habit, with the sporophyte reproducing by 

 cones. They differ among themselves in the size and shape of the 

 leaves, and in the types of cones produced. Of the sixteen or 

 eighteen families which comprise the class, five are extinct, 

 representing the most primitive type of seed plants, unable to 

 survive to the present day in competition with more specialized 

 species. A few other families include a small number of uncom- 

 mon genera, of little economic significance. The Cycad Family, 

 for example, is made up of semi-tropical species of low-growing 

 trees with pithy palm-like trunks and terminal clusters of large 

 fern-like leaves (fig. 70); one species known as the sago palm, 

 native to southern Florida, is considered a food plant by the 

 Seminoles who make flour from its underground starchy stem. 

 Another family includes the single species of the maidenhair 

 tree, an Oriental species with wedge-shaped deciduous leaves 

 often grown for ornamental purposes in eastern cities. 



The most familiar of the Gymnosperm families are known as 

 conifers.* These are important forest trees as indicated in Chap- 

 ters 16 and 18. The Pine Family includes those species with 

 needle-like leaves as are found typically among the pines, firs, 

 spruces and hemlocks. One member of the family — the larch — is 

 unusual in being deciduous. Smaller shrubby evergreens are 

 found in the Yew Family, represented by the common yew; this 

 family has needle-like leaves, but fleshy and berry-like cones 

 instead of dry scaly ones. The species with small, overlapping 

 scale-like leaves are found in the Cypress Family, which includes 

 our native cedars and junipers as well as many of the shrubby 

 ornamental evergreens used as foundation plantings around 

 houses and public buildings. Some of the largest trees in the 

 world are found in the Redwood Family, which also includes the 

 bald cypress of our southern swamps. 



The Fruit-seed Plants 



The class of the Angiosperms includes, in addition to all of the 

 flowering plants, many species which do not have flowers in the 

 popular sense of the term. But all produce fruits of a sort, fleshy or 



* For illustrations of conifer families ^ see Chapter 76. 



