410 



PINACEAE. 



1. Juniperus bermudiana L. Ber- 

 muda Cedar. Bermuda Juniper. (Fig. 

 448.) An irregularly and rather widely 

 branched tree, conic in outline when young, 

 becoming round-topped when old, with a 

 spread of branches greater than its height, 

 reaching a maximum height of about 70 

 feet with a trunk up to 4° in diameter, the 

 thin grey bark flaky in long narrow strips. 

 Leaves of young plants and of shoots 

 linear-acicular, ascending, 3"-5" long, less 

 than V' wide, nearly flat and whitish above, 

 convex and bright green beneath, 4-ranked ; 

 leaves of mature old twigs scale-like, about 

 1" long, closely appressed, imbricated, 4- 

 ranked, ovate or ovate-lanceolate, blunt, the 

 leaf -bearing twigs appearing 4-sided; 

 staminate flowers yellow; fruits compressed 

 and depressed-globose, sessile at the ends 

 of short scale-bearing twigs, dark blue, with 

 a bloom, about 3" high, 4" wide and 3" 

 thick. [Sahina hermudiaiia Antoine.] 



Abundant and forming nearly pure forests on hillsides and along marshes in 

 all parishes. Flowers in March and April. Fruit ripe in September and October. 

 Endemic. As one of the most interesting of all trees and the most conspicuous 

 vegetable object of Bermuda, this cedar has an extensive literature. Especial 

 reference is made to the account by Dr. Hooker in London Journal of Botany 2 : 

 141-145 ; the paper by Mr. Hemsley in Gardner's Chronicle, 53 : 656, 657, where 

 two illustrations are printed ; to Dr. Maxwell F. Masters' account in Journal of 

 Botany 37: 1-11; to an editorial in Garden and Forest 4: 289, 290, 294, 295, with 

 reproductions of full-page photographs of the old tree in Devonshire Churchyard 

 and of one of the large trees formerly standing in the Devonshire Marsh ; Mr. 

 Hemsley published detailed illustrations on plate 5, Botany of the Challenger 

 Expedition. The earliest published illustration known to me is that of Plukenet 

 in 1696, in his Almagestum Botanicum, platr 197. f. .',. as Juniperus horhadensis 

 cupressi folio, ramulis quadratis ; in 1730 another figure was published in a Cata- 

 logue of Plants in a Garden near London. 



The rules of botanical nomenclature may require the substitution of the name 

 Juniperus harhaJensis Linnaeus for Jtmiperus hermudiana Linnaeus, the name 

 usually applied to it. Linnaeus published these two species in 1753 on the same 

 page (p. 1039) of his Species Plantarum, J. harbadensis standing first in the 

 sequence and both names, it has been argued, refer to the Bermuda Cedar. For a 

 discussion of this point reference is made to the paper by R. Pilger, " Juniperi 

 Species antillanae " in Prof. TTrban's Symbolae Antillanae 7 : 478-481. 1913. 



The most abundant and characteristic tree of Bermuda. Although supposed by 

 some observers to grow elsewhere, there is no good evidence that it occurs wild ex- 

 cept on these islands, although it is recorded as having grown in the West Indies. 

 The wood is red, soft and easily worked ; it fades by exposure to the sun ; it is 

 used for furniture, cofl5ns, fence-posts, and for a great variety of small objects, 

 such as paper-cutters, boxes and rulers. The tree is planted along streets and for 

 avenue approaches to buildings and can be clipped into arbor-arches and hedges. 



Its nearest relative is JtDiipcrus lucuiiana Britton. of the northern Bahama 

 Islands and Cuba, which resembles it in having smaller fruit broader than high, 

 but has much more slender twigs and branches and smaller leaves. The Bermuda 

 tree may, perhaps, have originated from the Bahama species by a seed transported 

 by a bird in northern migratory flight, the plant becoming differentiated through 

 long isolation from its ancestors. 



On soil of average fertility the tree grows in height about two feet, and the 

 trunk increases in thickness about half an inch annually up to an age of fifteen 

 or twenty years, after which its growth is progressively slower. Its roots spread 

 widely. The famous ancient tree in Devonshire Churchyard measured 15.43 feet 

 in circumference on Dec. 11, 1912, and then bore only a few leafy branches at 

 the top. 



Poetic license is, apparently, responsible for the delusion that this tree is the 

 same as the Cedar of Lebanon 



With cedars chosen by His hand 

 from Lebanon He stores the land." 



A. Marvel. 



