JUNIPERUS FLACCIDA. 177 



Swiss botanist, Edmund Boissier, who distinguished it from J. excelsa 

 by "the scaly peduncles of the staminate flowers and the crest-like 

 tips of the scales of the fruit and the fewer seeds." This distinction 

 is doubtfully accepted by Sir J. I). Hooker in the " Flora of British 

 India." 



Juniperus procera. 



Hochstetter, Plant. Abyss. II. No. 537. Endlicher, Synops. Conif. 26. 

 Parlatore, D. C. Prodr. XVI. 485. J. excelsa procera, Carriere, Traite Conif. 

 ed. II. 37. 



This first became known to science from herbarium specimens brought 

 from Abyssinia in 1841 by the German traveller, Schimper. It has 

 quite recently been detected in Somalilaiid and other parts of East 

 Africa attaining a height of 80 100 feet. It is thence a tropical tree 

 separated geographically from Juniperus excelsa, but from which it can 

 scarcely be distinguished in herbarium specimens. 



Juniperus flaccida. 



A tree 20 30 feet high, the trunk and primary branches covered 

 with thin reddish bark. Branches lax, deflexed or spreading, the 

 branchlets and their ramifications slender, flaccid and pendulous, the 

 axial growths sometimes greatly elongated and with sub-distichous 

 ramification, the youngest lateral growths slender and nearly parallel. 

 Leaves dimorphic ; on the axial growths in verticils of three, narrowly 

 oblong, acute, glandular, concrescent but free and slightly spreading at 

 the acute tip ; on the younger growths in decussate pairs, much 

 smaller, scale-like, ovate or ovate-lanceolate, the lateral pairs sharply 

 keeled, bright grass-green. Staminate flowers four-angled, composed of 

 16 20 anthers. Fruits numerous, terminal on short lateral branchlets, 

 globose, 0*5 inch in diameter, composed of eight concrescent scales each 

 with a small transverse apiculate umbo, dark purple, highly glaucous 

 when mature and enclosing six seeds. * 



Juniperus flaccida, Schlechtendal in Limuea, XII. 495 (1838). Endlicher, 

 Synops. Conif. 29. Carriere, Traite Conif. ed. II. 48. Parlatore, D. C. Prodr. 

 XVI. 492. Gordon, Pinet. ed. II. 145 Sargent, Silva N. Amer. X. 83, t. 519. 



Juniperus flaccida, one of the most beautiful of Junipers, as seen 

 in the Botanic gardens in the south of Europe, was discovered by 

 Schiede on the mountains of central Mexico in 1838 and was 

 subsequently found by other botanical explorers of that region at 

 altitudes ranging from 5,000 to 7,000 feet ; it is also common in 

 various parts of north-east Mexico, ascending to 6,000 8,000 feet 

 on the mountains east of the great central plateau whence it spreads 

 into south-west Texas. It was introduced into Europe soon after 

 its first discovery,! but thrives in the open air only in places 

 where the temperature in the winter season does not fall below 

 the freezing point as in the south of France. In Great Britain 



* Fruiting branchlets were communicated by the late M. Charles Naudin from the 

 Villa Thuret Botanic garden, Antibes. 



t Ex Carriere, Traite General des Coniferes, p. 48. 



