32 HARDY CONIFEROUS TREES. 



Leaves linear, alternate (often heteromorphic), sickle-shaped, 

 usually in five rows. 



Large growing evergreen trees, natives of China or Japan. 

 In some of the varieties the primordial leaves are retained 

 for an indefinite period of time. 



Cryptomeria japonica,^ Don. {Synonyms: Cnpres- 

 sus japojiica, Linnaeus ; Taxodinni japonicnm, Brongn ; Cryp- 

 tomeria Fortiinei, Koch). Shanghai. 1845. Delighting and 

 thriving most luxuriantly in cool, damp soils, the humid atmo- 

 sphere of the British Isles is peculiarly suitable for the successful 

 culture of this handsome and hardy conifer. Cold, draughty, 

 and exposed situations it, however, cannot bear ; so that in 

 planting this fact should be borne in mind, while at the same 

 time few coniferous trees can surpass the present species for 

 thriving where the soil is stiff or cold and in a sunless situation. 

 When seen under favourable conditions, the Japan cedar is a 

 tall, portly tree, of somewhat broadly conical shape, with a 

 clean, straight stem, horizontally spreading branches, often 

 slightly drooping with upcurved tips, the lateral ones 

 divided into numerous frondose branchlets, thickly covered 

 with dark bluish-green foliage. The rigid leaves are fully 

 \ an inch long, incurved or awl-shaped, slightly quadrangu- 

 lar, appressed to the stem, and indistinctly marked with two 

 glaucous lines underneath. Both male and female cones are 

 abundantly produced, the latter being almost globular, 

 about f of an inch in diameter, usually singly and erect, 

 with the scales serrated at the edges, so that the fully 

 developed cone is rough and prickly. Quite a feature of the 

 tree arc the male catkins, which grow thickly in axillary spikes 

 in the leaf axils, usually towards the branch extremities. A 

 peculiarity of the cones is that in some instances the axes 

 elongate and produce foliage leaves at their apices, thus 

 imitating in a marked degree those of CunningJianiia 

 sinensis and several species of Picea. When favourably 



* For a full description of Ciyptomeria Japonica, sec article Ly myself in The 

 Journal 0/ Forestry ^ vol. xi., 1886. 



