SAXEGOTHiEA 



Saacegothtza, Lindley, in Journ. Hort. Soc. Lond. vi. 258 (1851); Bentham et Hooker, Gen. PL hi. 

 434 (1880); Masters, in Journ. Linn. Soc. {Bot.) xxvii. 299 (1889), and xxx. 10 (1893); 

 Pilger, in Engler, Pflanzenreich, iv. 5, Taxacece, 42 (1903); Stiles, in New Phytologist, vii. 209- 

 222, figs. 28-34 (1908), and Ann. Bot. xxvi. 446, 463 (1912); R. B. Thomson, in Bot. Gaz. 

 xlvii. 344-354, P'- 22 "24 (i99)- 



A genus belonging to the division Podocarpeae of the order Taxaceae, mainly 

 characterised by the yew-like foliage with true scaly buds, and by the female cones 

 composed of spirally and loosely imbricated carpellary scales, the uppermost of which 

 are fertile, each bearing internally near the base a cavity from which hangs a single 

 free minute ovule ; scales ultimately becoming fleshy, coalescing to form an irregular 

 globose head, only a few of the ovules ripening into seeds, which when mature are 

 set free by the gaping apart of the fertile scales. The genus, which has been 

 studied by W. Stiles at Cambridge, is a remarkable one, all parts of the plant having 

 a simple structure, suggesting that it is a primitive type. Saxegothcea is allied to 

 Araucaria as well as to Podocarpus, resembling the latter in leaf, but the former in 

 the female flowers and in the wingless pollen grains. Only one species is known, in 

 the following description of which the other characters of the genus are given in 

 detail. (A. H.) 



SAXEGOTH^A CONSPICUA 



Saxegothaa conspicua, Lindley, in Journ. Hort. Soc. Lond^ vi. 258, figs. A and B (185 1), and in 

 Paxton, Flower Garden, ii. Ill, fig. 190 (1852); Masters, in Gard. Chron. ii. 684, figs. 130, 

 131 (1887), and v. 782, fig. 125 (1889); Kent, Veitch's Man. Conif. 158 (1900); Pilger, in 

 Engler, Pflanzenreich, iv. 5. Taxacea, 42 (1903); Castillo and Dey, Jeog. Vej. Rio Valdivia, 

 31, fig. 12 (1908). 



An evergreen tree, attaining in South America 30 to 40 ft. in height, becoming 

 at high elevations a low dense shrub. Bark greyish brown, scaling off like that of a 

 plane tree, leaving the reddish brown cortex beneath exposed in patches. Branches 

 widely spreading, pendulous at the ends, giving off the branchlets in opposite pairs 

 or in whorls of three or four ; young branchlets slender, glabrous, marked by the 

 decurrent bases of the leaves, green with inconspicuous white dots on the lower 

 side. Buds minute, globose, surrounded by three to seven ovate greenish scales, 

 which persist brown and withered at the apex of the branchlet of the second year. 

 Leaves, persistent about five years, arising in spiral order, spreading radially on 



1458 



