CLASS GYMNOSPERM^E 



This division of the vegetable kingdom includes the seed-bearing 

 plants which bear their ovules (ripening into seeds) not in a closed 

 ovary, like the Angiospermae, but on open scales; hence they are called 

 naked-seeded. Their leaves are chiefly parallel-veined and cotyledons 

 are frequently more than two. The flow r ers are unisexual and incom- 

 plete and the ovule is fertilized by direct contact with the pollen. The 

 fruit is usually a cone, but sometimes considerably modified so as to 

 more resemble a drupe or berry. The representatives are all woody 

 plants, being mostly trees. A few are shrubs. 



ORDER CONIFERS: PINE FAMILY. 



Leaves narrow orscale-like, clustered or alternate, parallel-veined and gen- 

 erally persistent: buds scaly. Flowers in catkins or solitary with an involucre 

 of enlarged bud-scales, unisexual and monoecious (dioecious in Juniperus), 

 destitute of calyx and corolla; anthers 2-celled; pistillate flowers bearing on the 

 inner face of each scale 2 or more ovules and becoming in Fruit a woody cone 

 or rarely a berry or drupe; seeds often winged, with coat of two layers; embryo 

 axial in copious albumen ; cotyledons 2 or several. 



A family of trees and few shrubs with resinous juice and cell-walls 

 of wood marked with circular disks. It is of greatest economic value 

 and world-wide distribution, but chiefly in north temperate regions. 

 Among its representatives are trees, notably the Sequoias, which are 

 considered to be of the greatest longevity of all living organisms. It 

 consists of 31 genera, of which 13 are represented in the United States. 



GENUI JUXIPERUS LINNAEUS. 



Leaves of two sorts, viz., opposite, scale-like, with gland-like disk and 

 appressed in four ranks, or subulate and free in whorls of three, sessile, sharp- 

 pointed, without gland, convex below, concave and stomatiferous above both 

 forms sometimes on the same plant. Flowers small, dioecious or sometimes 

 monoecious, oblong, terminal or axillary, the staminate yellow, with peltate scales 

 each bearing 2-6 globose anther-cells attached to its base ; the pistillate consisting 

 of 2-6 opposite or ternate fleshy pointed scales each bearing one or two erect 

 ovules. Fruit berry-like by a coalescence of the fleshy scales of the flower, blue- 

 black or red with white bloom, smooth or marked with points of the flower- 

 scales, closed or open, containing usually one to six bony wingless seeds and 

 requiring one to three years to attain maturity; cotyledons 2-6. 



Evergreen trees and shrubs of the northern hemisphere having 

 pungent aromatic juice, generally fibrous bark and very durable light 

 odorous wood. About 35 species are known. In the New World they 

 are distributed from the Arctic Circle to the highlands of Mexico, 

 Lower California and the \Yest Indies in twelve arborescent species and 



