CONIFERS. 



ORDER CIII. CONIFERS. 



Eesinous and mostly evergreen trees or shrubs, with usually awl- or needle-shaped 

 or scale-like mostly rigid leaves, and mono3cious or rarely dioecious achlamydeous 

 flowers ; male flowers reduced to the stamens only, which are indefinite in number 

 and often numerous, the filaments upon a central axis, with the anther-cells (2 or 

 more) either adnate to the back of the connective or suspended from the under side 

 of its scale-like or peltate summit, the cells dehiscing variously ; fertile aments con- 

 sisting of few or many scales, becoming a dry cone in fruit or fleshy and berry-like 

 (in Juniperus) ; ovules naked, 2 or more, at or on the base of each scale, adnate or 

 free, erect or inverted ; seeds naked or winged, with chartaceous or crustaceous or 

 sometimes bony testa. Embryo straight, axile in fleshy oily albumen ; cotyledons 

 2, or often several in a whorl. 



A large and most important order, cosmopolitan, but found most abundantly in the temperate 

 and cooler portions of the northern hemisphere ; valuable al>ove all others for its timber and for 

 its resinous products (the Abictinece especially), and very extensively planted for shade and orna- 

 ment. The following tribes and genera are represented in California, the chief remaining trite 

 Araacariccp largely replacing them in the southern hemisphere. The morphology of the flowers 

 in this order has been the subject of much controversy, and some points are still by no means set- 

 tled. It is now generally admitted, however, that the staminate inflorescence is to be considered 

 as a single polyandrous flower, rather than as an ament, and that view is here adopted, though it 

 is found convenient to occasionally make use of the ordinary terminology in the descriptions. The 

 distinction of bracts and carpellary scales in the female aments, which is so evident in the Abie- 

 tincie, i^ obscure in the preceding tribes, the two organs being consolidated into one body in the 

 Taxodinece, while in the Ctiprcsshicce the presence of anything corresponding to a carpellary scale 

 may be considered as questionable, the existing "scale" answering pretty evidently to the " bract " 

 of the Abietiiiece. 



TRIBE I. CUPRESSINEyE. Scales of the fertile ament few, decussately opposite, apparently 

 simple, becoming a small cone or connate into a drupe-like galbulus. Ovules 2 to several 

 in their axils, orthotropous and erect. Cotyledons 2, very rarely more. Anther-cells 2 to 

 8, introrse on the lower part of the face of the more or less peltate connective-scale : pollen- 

 grains simple. Leaves decussately opposite or ternate, often dimorphous, usually scale- 

 like and mostly adnate, the earlier free and subulate : leaf-buds not scaly. 



* Flowers dioscious : fruit drupe-like with bony ovate seeds : leaves opposite or in threes ; foliage 



never 2-ranked. 



1. Juniperus. Ovules in pairs or solitary at the base of the fleshy (4 to 6, or 3 to 9) scales. 



Seeds 1 to 5 or more. Berry globose, reddish, or blue or blackish, ripening the second 

 year. 



* * Flowers monoecious : fruit a cone : leaves opposite. 



- Cone subglobose, of spreading peltate or wedge-shaped scales : seeds 1 or more to each scale, 



angled or narrowly winged. 



2. Cupressus. Seeds several to each thickened woody peltate scale, maturing the second year. 



Foliage never 2-ranked. 



3. Chamaecyparis. Seeds 1 or 2 to each thin scale, maturing the first year. Leaves and 



branches more or less 2-ranked. 



+- -t- C'one oblong, of imbricated or valvate oblong scales : seeds 2 to each scale, maturing the 



first year : foliage 2-ranked. 



4. Thuya. Scales 8 to 12, rather thin, imbricate. Seeds equally 2-winged. 



5. Libocedrus. Scales 6, thick-coriaceous and valvate, only the middle pair fertile. Seeds 



unequally 2-winged. 



TKIBE 11. TAXODINEJ?. Scales of the fertile aments more numerous and spirally arranged, 

 in fruit forming a woody cone. Ovules erect or in some genera inverted. Leaves alter- 

 nate. Otherwise as Capressinece, and intermediate between that tribe and the Abietinece. 



6. Sequoia. Tall trees, with short-linear to ovate-lanceolate acute carinate leaves, and ovate 



cones with thick wedge-shaped spreading scales. 



