568 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



ovular scales outgrow the bracts, and in the mature cone are much larger than and 

 almost entirely coalesced with them. 



The cones, which are borne on short stout stalks, clothed with a few membranous 

 bracts, either remain terminal and erect or are pushed aside by the growth of a 

 lateral branch. They take two years to ripen, and remain persistent on the tree for 

 some months after the dehiscence of the seeds. Ripe cones, about 3 inches long by 

 I J inch in diameter, oblong-ovoid, obtuse at the apex, composed of woody scales, 

 which result from the coalescence of the ovular scales and bracts of the flower. 

 The scales are fan-shaped, about f inch wide ; upper margin rounded and reflexed ; 

 outer surface convex, marked by a transverse rugged irregular ridge ; inner surface 

 concave, with slight depressions for the seeds. Seeds, five to nine on each scale, 

 reversed, oval, compressed, dark brown, surrounded by a narrow membranous 

 reddish-brown wing, notched at the base and marked at the apex by the white 

 hilum ; seed with wing, about f inch long by ^ inch wide. The seedling has a long 

 slender tap root, and a terete green glabrous caulicle about an inch in length, which 

 bears two cotyledons. These are sessile, linear, tapering to an obtuse apex, a little 

 more than ^ inch long, dark green above, paler below with indistinct lines of stomata. 

 Primary leaves like the cotyledons, but longer. 



Sciadopitys is a monotypic genus, only one species being known, which is a 

 native of Japan. 



SCIADOPITYS VERTICILLATA, Umbrella Pine^ 



Sciadopitys verticillata, Siebold et Zuccarini, loc. at. 1844; Kent, Veitch's Man. Coniferm, 287 

 (1900); Shirasawa, Icon. Ess. Forest. Japan, text 22, t. 8, ff. 15-36 (1900); Thiselton-Dyer, 

 Bot Mag. t. 8050 (1905); Mayr, Fremdldnd. Wald- u. Farkbdume, 407 (1906). 



Taxus verticillata, Thunberg, Fl. Jap. 276 (1784). 



The species has been described above. The tree is known in Japan as Koya- 

 maki, or pine of Mt. Koya, one of the localities where it is found growing wild. 

 Thomas Lobb sent a living plant in 1853 from the Botanic Garden at Buitenzorg 

 in Java to Veitch's nursery at Exeter ; but it soon died. It was afterwards intro- 

 duced by seeds brought from Japan by J. Gould Veitch in 1861, some being also 

 sent about the same time by Fortune to Standish at Ascot. 



A variety in which the leaves are striped with yellow was introduced by 

 Fortune ; but this seems to be now unknown in cultivation. 



Plants only 3 feet high produced cones in 1876 in the nursery of Messrs. 

 Thibaut and Keteleer at Sceaux.^ The tree appears to have first borne fruit in 

 Scotland 'at Ardkinglas, in 1878, and in England* at Kew and Coombe Wood, in 

 1884. Proliferous cones,' which bear cladodes at their apex, are of frequent 

 occurrence in Japan, and have also been borne by trees cultivated in Europe. In 



' This is a translation of Sciadopitys, a name given on account of the leaf-like cladodes spreading out firom the apex of 

 the shoot, like the ribs of an umbrella. ' Card. Chron. v. 827 (1876). 



* Jour, of Forestry, 1879, P- 5o8. ' Card. Chron. i. 80 (1884). '> JtlsiSiets, Jotini. Bot. loc. cit. f 4. 



