LIBOCEDRUS 



Libocedrus, Endlicher, Syn. Conif. 42 (1847); Bentham et Hooker, Gen. PI. iii. 426 (1880); 



Masters, /or. Linn. Soc. {Bof.), xxx. 19 (1892), and Gard Chron. xxx. 467 (1900). 

 Heyderia, Koch, Dtndrologie^\\. 2, p. 179 (1873). 

 Calocedrus, Yi\az,Journ. Bot. xi. 196 (1873). 

 Thuya, Baillon, Hist. PI. xii. 34 (1892). 



Evergreen trees with aromatic odour, belonging to the tribe Cupressineae of the 

 order Coniferae, closely resembling Thuya in habit and other characters, the branches 

 as in that genus ending in frondose "branch-systems," which are flattened in one 

 plane and three- to four-pinnately divided, with their axes bearing scale-like leaves 

 in four ranks. On the main axes the leaves are often remote by the lengthening 

 of the nodes ; on the lateral axes they are closely imbricated, and vary in the different 

 species in size and form, as detailed in the three sections below. In seedling 

 plants the leaves are always linear-lanceolate and spreading. 



Flowers : monoecious with those of the two sexes on different branchlets, or 

 rarely dioecious, solitary, terminal. Male flowers oblong, subsessile, with six to 

 twenty stamens decussately opposite on a slender axis ; filaments short, dilated 

 into broadly ovate or orbicular scale-like peltate connectives, which bear usually 

 four sub-globose anther-cells, two-valved and opening on the back. Female flowers 

 oblong; subtended at the base by several pairs of leaf -like scales, which persist 

 slightly enlarged under the fruit ; composed of four or six decussately opposite 

 acuminate bracts ; lowest pair small, unfertile ; next pair above fertile, bearing at 

 the base two erect ovules on a minute accrescent ovular scale ; uppermost pair when 

 present unfertile. 



Cones small, pendulous or erect, ripening and letting out the seed in the first 

 year, persistent empty on the branchlets in the second year. Scales decussate, four 

 or six ; the lowermost pair short, thin, often reflexed ; the next pair long, thickened, 

 woody, widely spreading at maturity, marked externally close to the apex by the 

 shortly acuminate or long-beaked tip of the bract ; third pair, when present, con- 

 nate into an erect median partition. Seeds, two or one by abortion on each of the 

 two fertile scales, with two lateral wings, one broad, oblique, nearly as long as the 

 scale ; the other short, narrow, or rudimentary ; cotyledons two. 



Eight species of Libocedrus have been described, remarkable for their distribu- 

 tion over widely separated areas in the two hemispheres. Three sections may be 

 distinguished : 



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