INTRODUCTION. ]X 



perineaa ; and although attaining, as many of them do, to huge 

 dimensions and great utility as timber trees, they possess an 

 organization inferior to that of other forest trees, and are 

 classed by botanists under the term Gymnospermce (naked 

 seed), because the female flowers have no pericarpal covering, 

 but consist of naked ovules, to which fertilization is communi- 

 cated directly from the pollen, without the interposition of 

 style or stigma, and which is analogous to the ova of reptiles 

 in the animal kingdom. The male flowers consist of catkins, 

 formed of a number of scales, in the body of which the pollen 

 is contained, in two or more cells, while the female organs, or 

 naked ovules, originate from the large scales of the cones, to- 

 wards their base. 



In the section Abietine^e are placed the Genus Pinus, Abies, 

 Picea, Larix, Pseudo-larix, Cedrus, Araucaria, Dammara, Cun- 

 ninghamia, and Sciadopitys, all of which are timber trees, dis- 

 tinguished by their slender, needle-like, or flat linear and 

 lanceolate leaves, and branches in whorls, the lower ones always 

 dying off as the trees grow old. The leaves and cones also 

 differ essentially in the different Genera. In that of Pinus 

 (the true Pines) the leaves are long, slender, and in bundles of 

 twos, threes, or fives, each set being enclosed at the base in a 

 scaly sheath, and with the fruit a cone, composed of persistent 

 scales. In the Genus Abies (the Spruces) the leaves are soli- 

 tary, more or less scattered round the shoots, or somewhat two- 

 ranked in their dh'ection, as in the Hemlock Spruce, and with 

 the cones in a drooping position, and composed of persistent 

 scales. In the Genus Picea (the Silver Firs) the leaves are 

 flattened, linear, or lanceolate, white beneath, and mostly ar- 

 ranged on the upper side of the shoots, in a more or less pec- 

 tinated manner ; the cones are erect on the upper side of the 

 top branches, and composed of deciduous scales, which fall off 

 the axis when the seeds are ripe. In the Genus Larix (the 

 Larches) the leaves are linear, soft, rounded at the points, deci- 

 duous, and disposed in groups on the adult parts of the tree; 

 the cones are small, erect on the upper side of the branchlets, 

 a 



