MICROCACHRYS TETRAGONA. 101 



form than any other country ; that whilst in the south temperate 

 zone generally none of the species cover large areas, in Tasmania 

 the individual species are so local that the island may be crossed 

 from north to south without a single indigenous species being met 

 with."* The species here described is one of the rarest and one 

 of the most peculiar of them, particularly in the scales of the 

 young cones assuming a pulpy texture and bright colour, a character 

 probably unique in the Order. Like the Saxegoth^ea, it forms a 

 direct transition from the Taxads to the Conifer* with imbricated 

 leaves. The generic name is formed from ^ut/cpoc (small) and Kay^piq 

 (a cone). 



Microcachrys tetragona. 



A low straggling shrub with much elongated slender branches covered 

 with dark reddish brown bark. Ramification tetrastichous (four-ranked) ; 

 branchlets short, four-angled, similarly ramified and falling off the third 

 or fourth year. Leaves in decussate pairs, ovate-rhomboid, sub-acute ; 

 on the young shoots, concrescent or closely imbricated; on the axial 

 shoots longer, keeled and free at the acute tips, dark green, becoming 

 effete the third year. Flowers dioecious and terminal. Staminate 

 flowers small, ovoid or sub-cylindric, pale yellow, composed of numerous 

 stipitate two-lobed anthers, each with a triangular connective. Ovuli- 

 ferous flowers ovoid or globose, 0'25 inch long, bright red ; scales 

 spirally imbricated, each bearing an inverted ovule and ultimately 

 becoming succulent. 



Microcachrys tetragona, Hooker til in Lond. Journ. Bot. loc. cit. supra. Fl 

 Tasman. I. 358, with tig. ; and Bot. Mag. t. 5576. Carriere, Traite Conif. ed. II. 

 688. Gordon, Pinet. ed. II. 184. Masters in Journ. R. Hort. Soc. XIV. 219. 



Dacrydium tetragonurn, Parlatore, D. C. Prodr. XVI. 496. 



Microcachrys tetragona occurs only on the highest summits of 

 the Western Range and Mount Lapey rouse in Tasmania. It was 

 introduced to the Royal Gardens at Kew about the year 1857 by 

 Mr. William Archer on whose property it grew. Although of great 

 interest in a botanical sense, its only value as a garden plant is for 

 conservatory decoration for which the elegant habit it can be made 

 to assume under pot culture, its neat foliage and bright red fruits 

 render it highly suitable. 



* Flora of Tasmania, 349. 



