292 CUNNINGHAMI A SINENSIS. 



Cunninghamia sinensis. 



A medium-sized tree, said to attain a height of 40 50 feet in its-- 

 native country, but in the south of Europe seldom exceeding 30 35 feet. 

 Branches at first pseudo-verticillate, subsequently becoming very irregular 

 in old trees ; ramification distichous and opposite, bark of branchlets 

 green like the leaves. Leaves persistent five seven years, spirally 

 arranged, but twisted obliquely at the base so as to spread laterally in 

 two opposite directions, narrowly lanceolate, acuminate, 1 2 inches- 

 long with thickened midrib and margins, pale lustrous green above, 

 glaucous beneath. Flowers monoecious on different branches, terminal or 

 pseudo-terminal. Staminate flowers densely umbellate, surrounded at the 

 base by numerous triangular, serrulated and closely imbricated involucral 

 bracts ; stamens spirally crowded, with a short filament and suborbicular 

 connective from which depend three longitudinally dehiscent anther cells. 

 Cones erect, solitary or clustered at or near the end of branchlets of the 

 preceding year, ovoid-globose, 11 '5 inch in diameter, persistent after 

 the fall of the seeds, composed chiefly of spirally arranged bracts- 

 "wholly confluent with the seed scale which is reduced to a mere cellular 

 projection with a vascular connective between the central bundle of the 

 bract ; from this placenta! process hang three compressed seeds, each with 

 a membranous wing."* 



Cunninghamia sinensis, Robert Brown ex L. C. Richard, loc. cit. supra. 

 London, Arb. et Frnt. Brit. IV. 2445, with figs. Siebold and Zuccarini, 

 Fl. Jap. II. 7, tt. 103, 104. Murray, Pines and Firs of Japan, 116, with figs. 

 Carriere, Traite Conif. ed. II. 228. Gordon, Pinet. ed. II. 76. Beissneiv 

 Nadelholzk. 196, with fig. Masters in Journ. R. Hort. Soc. XIV. 203. 



C. lanceolata, Hooker, W. Bot. Mag. t. 2743 (1827). 



Pinus lanceolata, Lambert, Genns Finns, I. t. 34 (1803). 



Belis jacnlifolia, Salisbury in Trans. Linn. Soc. VIII. 315 (1807). 



Cunninghamia sinensis is a native of southern China where it has. 

 been seen in several localities by botanical travellers, and quite 

 recently by Dr. Henry in the province of Yim-nan,f but the extent 

 of its distribution is very imperfectly known. It was originally 

 discovered by James Cunningham in the early part of the eighteenth 

 century, but scarcely anything was known of it till herbarium 

 specimens were brought from China by Sir George Staunton in 1795. 

 It was introduced in 1804 by William Kerr.j 



The Cunninghamia was for some years after its introduction treated 

 as a greenhouse plant, and in one of the houses in the Botanic Garden 

 at Glasgow its staminate flowers were produced for the first time in 1826.. 

 In 1816 a plant was turned out into a sheltered part of the grounds- 

 at Claremoiit, where it continued to live without protection during the 

 winter ; this course was followed in other places, so- that some old 

 trees are still to be found scattered over the southern counties. At 

 its best the Cunninghamia is a very distinct tree of Araucaria-like aspect, 

 but the foliage of more than one year's standing is invariably more or 

 less discoloured, probably from a combination of causes, which has- 

 proved a drawback to its - use as an ornamental tree in this country. 



* Masters in Journal of the Linuean Society, loc. cit. supra* 

 t Kew Bulletin (1897), p. 409. % See page 170.. 



