452- The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



Ripe cones, solitary, erect, on short stout peduncles, dull-brown, resinous, 

 ellipsoid or cylindrical ; rounded, flattened or depressed at the apex. Bracts 

 obsolete or minute and ragged. Scales numerous, closely imbricated, woody, fan- 

 shaped ; upper expanded part thin, transversely oblong, with denticulate rounded or 

 sloping wings, brown-tomentose in greater part beneath, almost glabrous above ; claw 

 thickened, obcuneate, with a raised ridge between the depressions for the seeds on 

 the upper surface, the lower surface being slightly hollowed by the pressure of the 

 seeds of the adjoining scale. Seeds, two on each scale, i to J inch long, with resin- 

 vesicles on both surfaces, brown, irregularly triangular ; surmounted by a membranous 

 brownish wing, broadly triangular or hatchet-shaped, about twice as long as the body 

 of the seed. Cotyledons, nine or ten. 



The flowers appear in July or August, the pollen being shed profusely in October. 

 During winter the cones remain small, and only begin to grow in the following April, 

 attaining about half or two-thirds their full size in October of the second year. They 

 are fully ripe in October or November of the third year, i.e. about twenty-six months 

 after the first appearance of the flowers. In their native forests the dissemination of 

 the seed is caused by the autumnal rains, the cones not disarticulating in dry weather. 

 After being soaked with rain, the scales and seeds separate from the axis of the 

 cone (which remains persistent on the branch) and fall to the ground, the seeds 

 with their light wings being blown, when there is a breeze, to a little distance from 

 the parent tree. In England, irregularities occur in the period when the cones dis- 

 articulate, dependent, probably, on the absence of heavy rains in the autumn in 

 certain seasons. 



Seedling. Plants raised from seed gathered on Mount Lebanon in 1904, and 

 sown at Monreith in April 1905, averaged 9 inches high in the following September,' 

 and showed the following characters: Tap-root, about 9 inches long, slender, 

 with a few lateral fibres. Caulicle, 2 inches long, slightly furrowed, glabrous. 

 Cotyledons, ten, sessile, if inch long, curved, tapering to a sharp point, triangular 

 in section, the upper two sides stomatiferous, the lower side green and narrow. 

 Young stem glabrous, bearing in a whorl, just above the cotyledons, the first seven 

 leaves, f inch long, linear, flattened, sharp-pointed, stomatiferous on both surfaces, 

 deeply grooved below, slightly convex above, sharply serrate in margin. Above the 

 whorl, leaves, gradually increasing in size to i\ inch long, arise in spiral order, 

 similarly serrate and stomatiferous, but almost rounded in section ; in addition, the 

 stem gives off" at irregular intervals five or six small branchlets. 



With regard to the different forms of the cedar, which inhabit four distinct and 

 isolated areas, opinions are much at variance as to their rank. They differ more or 

 less in the length of their leaves, and in the size and shape of the cones, cone scales, 

 and seeds, and in the young stage they differ in habit ; but in their native forests 

 they all assume, when old, the flattened form which is sometimes erroneously 

 considered to be peculiar to the Lebanon cedar. This is caused by the inflection 

 of the leading shoot, which is followed by a diminution in the rate of vertical growth, 

 the lateral branches at the same time thickening and growing out horizontally. An 



' This growth is quite exceptional in my experience. (H. J. E.) 



