Miscellaneous. 215 



tostruhus wo shall lind a score or more. Indeed in this plant a 

 branchlot sprinpjs from nearly every axil on the main branch, sliow- 

 ing au oxtraoi'dinary vigour. As vigour is opposed to a freo deve- 

 lopment of foliage, the small thread-like leaves of Gli/jdostrubus are 

 naturally to bo expected, and the free leaves distichously arranged 

 is the natural concomitant of the weaker Taxodium. Fortunately I 

 am able to sustain this theory by actual facts. I have a seedling tree 

 ten years old, of remarkable vigour. It does not branch quite as 

 much as the typical Gliqitostrohus, but much more freely than any 

 Taxodium. The result is, the foliage is aciculate, not distichous, and 

 just intermediate between the two supposed genera, liuttohelpme 

 still more, my tree of Gh/jitostrohns has pushed forth some weak 

 shoots with foliage identical in every respect with the intermediate 

 Taxodium. Specimens of all these are presented with this. In es- 

 tablishing Ghjptostrohus, Endlicher notes some trilling differences in 

 the scales of the cones between it and Taxodium ; but all familiar 

 with numerous individuals of some species of Coniferoc, Biota orien- 

 talis for instance, know how these varj-. There can be no doubt, I 

 think, of the identity of the two ; and this will form another very 

 interesting link in the chain of evidence that the flora of Japan is 

 closely allied to that of the United States. 



If we were to look on the so-called leaves of Pinus and Sciadoj)it>/s 

 as true leaves, we should find serious opposition to my theory that a 

 vigorous axial growth is opposed to the development of free leaves 

 in Conifera: ; for wo should see a class of plants which notoriously 

 adds but from three to six branches annually to each axis clothed 

 with foliage. But admitting them to be phylloid shoots, it confirms 

 our theory in a strong degree. We then see a plant loaded with 

 branchlets ; and so great is the tendency to use them instead of leaves, 

 that in some cases, as in Plmis strohus, P. exceha, and others of a 

 softer class of Phylloidea), the bud-sc;des are almost entirely confined 

 to the sheathing leaflets — ^just as in the very rugged, hard-leaved, 

 almost spinescent forms, like Pinus austriaca, we find them more 

 dei)cndent on weU-develnped adnate leaf-scales. In Abies of old 

 authors, A. exceha for insttmce, we have a numerous-branching ten- 

 dency; hence wo have true leaves, though partially adnate, and no 

 necessity for phylloid branchlets. In Picea of Link, almost near 

 Abies, taking P. haJsamea as a type, we have a rather weaker deve- 

 lopment, slower-growing and less hardy trees, and the leaves are 

 nearly free. Could some of the shoots of Abies be arrested in their 

 axial development, as in Larix, we shoidd have the remainder in- 

 creased in length, aixl the fewer branchlets and two fonns of leaves 

 just as in Lttrix. Should, on the other hand, the plant increase in 

 vigour, there would be no class of free leaves, adiiation would be the 

 laAV, and metamorphosed branchlets prevail. Starting from Abies, 

 extra vigour makes the pine, extra delicacy the larch ; it is the 

 centre of two extremes. 



That the fascicles in Piitus are phylloid shoots, I think caiinotbo 

 tjuestioned. Their position in the axils of the true leaves, as beau- 

 lifuUy shown in Pinus auMriaca, indicates the probability ; their per- 



