2846 



PSEUDOLARIX 



PSEUDOTSUGA 



The golden larch is a beautiful tree with its long, 

 spreading branches pendulous at the extremities and 

 clothed with light green feathery foliage turning to a 

 clear yellow in fall. The tree seems to remain free from 

 insect pests and fungous diseases and is hardy in Massa- 

 chusetts, and probably farther north. It requires a sunny 

 open position and a well-drained moderately moist soil; 

 it does not thrive nor look well if crowded by other trees. 

 The golden larch should be raised only from seeds. If 

 grafted on its own roots or on the common larch, as is 

 sometimes done, it rarely grows into a symmetrical tree. 



Kaempf eri, Gord. (P. Fortunei, Mayr. Larix Kaemp- 

 feri, Fort. Laricopsis Kaempf eri, Kent). Fig. 3244. 

 Tree, becoming 130 ft. high: Ivs. linear, acuminate, 

 soft, light green, bluish green beneath, l%-3 in. long 

 and 1-1 H lines broad: staminate fls. yellow, about 

 J^in. long, slender-stalked; pistillate fls. about %in. 

 long: cone ovate, reddish brown, 2 3^-3 in. long, l%-2 

 in. broad; scales triangular, ovate-lanceolate, cordate 

 at the base, emarginate at the apex, woody; bracts 

 ovate-lanceolate, much smaller than the scales; seeds 

 about Min- long. F.S. 17:1777, 1778. R.H. 1868:331; 

 1871, pp. 608, 609. G.C. II. 19:88. Gn. 8, p. 325; 29, 

 p. 397. G.W. 3, p. 123; 14, p. 603. F.E. 19:236 (pi. 

 94). B.M.8176. Var. nana, Beissn. Dwarf form, cult, 

 in China and Japan; without much decorative value. 



ALFRED REHDER. 



PSEUDOPANAX (false Panax). Araliacese. A small 

 and horticulturally unimportant group of greenhouse 

 aralias grown for their foliage, flowers having never 

 developed in cultivation, so far as known, in America. 



Glabrous shrubs or rarely trees in cult. : Ivs. digitately 

 compound, and sometimes simple, the juvenile Ivs. 

 quite unlike mature specimens: fls. dioecious, in race- 

 mose or paniculate umbels; calyx-limb entire or 

 toothed; corolla of 5 distinct, valvate petals; stamens 5; 

 ovary 5-celled: fr. fleshy. Only 6 species are known, 

 as here understood all from the islands of New Zealand. 

 Cult, as in Dizygotheca. 



crassifdlium, Koch (Aralia crassifolia, Soland. Dizy- 

 gotheca crassifolia, Taylor). In cult, a shrub, often a 

 tree 20-40 ft. high in nature: Ivs. very variable, those 

 of seedlings rhomboid to ovate-lanceolate; of young, 

 unbranched plants very narrow-linear, sometimes 1- 

 foliolate and rigid, erect or sometimes 3-4-foliolate: 

 umbels terminal, compound: fr. globose, J^in. diam. 



P. Kerchove&num, Hort. (Aralia Kerchoveana)=Dizygotheca. 

 See Polyscias for related plants. -M- r AYr 



PSEUDOPHCENIX (Greek, fake Phoenix). Palmd- 

 cese, tribe Areceae. Until very recently only one recog- 

 nized species, a pinnate-leaved palm discovered in 1886 



on Elliott's Key, 

 Florida, and dis- 

 tinguished from 

 all other North 

 American palms 

 by its scarlet- 

 orange fruit, which 

 is about the size 

 of a cherry. 



Unarmed palms, 

 with spindle- 

 shaped trunk : spa- 

 dix shorter than 

 the Ivs., pendu- 

 lous, branched, 

 almost zigzag: female fl. with calyx small, spreading, 

 somewhat denticulate; petals 3, ovate, obtuse, green, 

 bent back; staminodia 6, distinctly dark purple at the 

 top: fr. a drupe, stipitate, containing 1-3 globular car- 

 pels. Allied to royal palm (Oreodoxa), but differing in 

 color of fr. and in spreading rather than ascending or 

 erect spadix-branches. 



Sargentii, Wendl. Fig. 3245. Trunk slender, 20-85 



3245. Fruit of Pseudophcenix Sargentii. 



(xH) 



ft. high, 10-12 in. thick: Ivs. abruptly pinnate, 4-5 ft. 

 long; pinnae lanceolate, acuminate, 12-16 in. long, 

 bright green above, glaucous beneath, folded backward 

 at the very base: spadix appears from among the Ivs.; 

 main and secondary branches light yellow-green and 

 flattened: fr. usually 3-lobed, J^-%in. thick, bright 

 orange-scarlet. Fla. Keys and the larger W. Indies. 

 G.F. 1:353, 355 (adapted in Fig. 3245). The tree is 

 somewhat planted in S. Fla. (see p. 2445), but the 

 plantings in S. Calif., appear to have been lost. 



P. vintfera, Becc. (Euterpe? vinifera, Mart.), of Haiti, is appar- 

 ently not in cult. Evidently this palm was once common in that 

 island, but probably it has been destroyed by the natives who fell 

 the trees to extract the saccharine juice of the inflated part of the 

 trunk and from which a fermented drink is made. The trunk is 

 apparently more ventricose than that of P. Sargentii, the spadix is 

 more diffuse and the branchleta more elongate, and the fr. pedicil- 



N. TAYLOR, f 



PSEUDOTSUGA (Greek, false Tsuga). Syn., Abietia. 

 Pindcess. Ornamental woody plants grown for their 

 regular pyramidal habit and evergreen foliage; also 

 important timber trees. 



Tall evergreen trees with whorled branches: Ivs. 

 more or less 2-ranked, linear, flattened, green and 

 grooved above, with a stomatiferous white band on each 

 side of the prominent midrib beneath, with only 1 

 vascular bundle in the center: staminate fls. axillary, 

 cylindric: cones pendent, ovate-oblong, maturing the 

 same season; scales rounded, rigid, persistent; bracts 

 longer than the scales, 2-lobed at the apex with the mid- 

 rib produced into a rigid awn; each scale with 2 nearly 

 triangular seeds with a wing shorter than the scale. 

 Four species, 2 in W. N. Amer., 1 in Japan, and 1 in 

 W. China. Very similar in habit and foliage to Abies, 

 from which Pseudotsuga without cones can be easily 

 distinguished by the more slender and flexible Ivs. and 

 the elongated, ovate or ovate-oblong, acute, not resi- 

 nous winter buds; from Tsuga it may be distinguished 

 without cones by the smooth branches, not roughened 

 by the persistent If .-bases, and the longer Ivs. The 

 light red or yellow wood is hard and durable and mucn 

 used for construction, for railway ties and for masts. 

 The bark is sometimes used for tanning leather. 



The Douglas spruce, which is the only species well 

 known in cultivation, is a tall tree of symmetrical 

 habit with regularly whorled branches clothed with 

 more or less two-ranked linear leaves, with orange 

 staminate and purplish pistillate catkins and with 

 pendulous medium-sized cones of somewhat bristly 

 appearance on account of the protruding bracts, fall- 

 ing off as a whole. It is one of the tallest and most 

 important forest and timber trees of western North 

 America, and in its forms of the higher altitudes it is 

 hardy as far north as Canada. When it finds a con- 

 genial home it is among the most desirable conifers for 

 park planting and it grows rapidly, but where rapid 

 growth is not desired, the var. glauca may be planted, 

 which is of much slower growth and more compact 

 habit. It thrives best in a porous sandy loam, and its 

 cultivation does not differ from that of Picea, which see. 

 Varieties may be grafted on the type. 



The Douglas spruce is a tree for the million. It 

 would be difficult to overrate its beauty. As a forest 

 tree it perhaps produces a greater crop of lumber to 

 the acre than any other species. It probably grows 

 faster than any other conifer. Indeed, the complaint is 

 sometimes made that it grows too fast to make a com- 

 pact lawn tree. It is desirable to have groups of Douglas 

 spruce, because the foliage is so soft that single speci- 

 mens are sometimes injured by high winds. Specimens 

 planted on the prairies without protection from hot 

 winds may sometimes have their buds injured by late 

 spring frosts. It is, of course, a mistake to use this 

 kind of spruce for a windbreak. The Douglas spruce 

 is generally propagated by seeds. Seeds of conifers 

 gathered on the Pacific slope are tender, while those 

 gathered in Colorado produce hardy trees which endure 



