412 THE BOOK. OF EVEKGKEEXS. 



VE1TCISIA, Lindley. 



A new genus named in honor of its discoverer, Mr. J. 

 G. Yeitch ; its real position in the family being as yet un- 

 settled, we place it here. There is but one species, of 

 which we append Dr. Lindley's account, as published in 

 the Gardener's Chronicle. 



Veitcllia Japonic a, Lindley. " Of this extraordinary 

 plant only two mutilated cones, a few seeds, and a small 

 branch have been received ; but they suffice to show that 

 it is a wholly new form in the coniferous order, with the 

 seeds of Chamoecypavis, the leaves of an Abies, and cones 

 which become, when ripe, more like spherical honeycombs 

 than anything else to which we can compare them. One 

 would fancy the plant to represent an Abies, permanently 

 assuming in the cone the monstrous form so often given 

 to the common Spruce by the attack of insects, and then 

 struggling onwards to become a Scyadopitys, or a Crypto- 

 meria. 



The branches are short, and covered with spirally ar- 

 ranged, projecting, curled pulvines, resembling those of 

 Abies Menzlesii. At the base of each branchlet is a 

 small cup formed of recurved scales, from which the 

 branchlet emerged when young. The leaves are inch 

 long, linear, blunt, and glaucous beneath. The cones are 

 erect, downy, nearly spherical, about 1 inch in dir.meter; be- 

 fore ripening, furnished with incurved, horn-like, project- 

 ing, bracteal scales, which, at maturity, break and disclose 

 as many four-sided sockets or cavities, within which lodge 

 a (to us uncertain) number of small, two- winged seeds, ter- 

 minated by a pair of short, straight, tooth-like processes." 



