490 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



Flowers appearing in January at the end of short lateral branchlets of the 

 previous year ; staminate, ^ inch long ; pistillate, with ovate, acute, greenish-yellow 

 scales, subtended at the base by two to six pairs of slightly altered leaves, which 

 persist yellowish, sharp-pointed and membranous at the base of the fruit. 



Cones about an inch long, pendulous, reddish-brown, on short branchlets with 

 ordinary leaves. Scales six ; lower pair short with a reflexed process ; middle pair 

 long, lanceolate, gradually narrowing to a rounded apex, below which is a minute 

 deltoid spreading or reflexed process, and concave on the inner surface at the base, with 

 depressions for the seeds ; upper pair connate into a thick, woody, median partition, 

 slightly longer than the fertile scales, crowned by three minute spines. Seeds four, 

 two collateral on each of the middle scales ; body, 5 to ^ inch, lanceolate, pale brown, 

 containing liquid resin, marked with a white hilum on each surface at the base ; 

 wings two lateral, one short .and narrow, the other oblique, produced above the seed, 

 nearly as long as the scale, rounded at the narrow apex, and about one-third as broad 

 as long in the middle widest part. 



Seedling. Seedlings sown at Colesborne in spring were about 3 inches high in 

 August, and had a slender tap-root, about 5 inches long. Caulicle, i^ inch long, 

 terete, brownish, glabrous. Cotyledons, two, if inch long, linear, nearly uniform in 

 width, rounded at the apex, green beneath, marked above with numerous in- 

 conspicuous stomatic lines. Primary leaves variable in number, first pair opposite, 

 succeeded by three or four whorls in sets of four each, or only one or two whorls are 

 produced ; linear, f inch long, tapering to an acuminate apex, glaucous on both 

 surfaces with indistinct stomatic lines. Above the primary leaves the stem gives off 

 branches, and produces scale-like small leaves, arranged in four ranks, and intermediate 

 in character between the primary leaves and the adult foliage. (A. H.) 



Distribution 



Libocedrus decurrens was discovered by Fremont in 1 846 on the upper waters 

 of the Sacramento river. It was introduced in 1853 by Jeffrey, who collected for the 

 Oregon Botanical Association of Edinburgh ; and his specimens were named by 

 Murray Thuya Craigana in honour of Sir W. Gibson Craig, one of the members of 

 the association. Carri^re confused the tree with Thuya gigantea ; and for some time 

 there was great confusion in the nomenclature of the two species. Libocedrus 

 decurrens is the name now universally adopted. 



According to Sargent, the distribution extends from the north fork of the 

 Santiam river in Oregon, lat. 44 50', southward along the western slopes of the 

 Cascade Mountains, and through the Sierra Nevada in California, occasionally 

 crossing the range into Western Nevada ; also along the Californian coast ranges 

 from Mendocino county to the San Bernardino, San Jacinto, and Cuyamaca 

 Mountains, reaching its most southerly point on Mount San Pedro Martin, half-way 

 down the peninsula of Lower California. Sargent states that it is rather rare in 

 Oregon, ascending to 5000 feet, and in the Californian coast ranges, where it rises to 

 5000 to 7000 feet ; being most abundant and of largest size in the sierras of Central 

 California at 3000 to 5000 feet, thriving best on warm, dry hillsides, plateaux, and 



