22G 



PINACEiE. 



[Gymnooens. 



Order LXXIV. IMNACEJv— Conifers. 



Conifers, Juss. Gen. 411. (1789) ; Brown in King's Voyage, Appendix, (1825) ; Rich. Monoqr. (182Cj. 

 — Abietinse et C'upressinae, Rich. I. c. (1826) ; liartl. Ord. Nat. 94 et 95. (1830) ; Endl. Gen. lxxvi. 

 and lxxvii. ; Meisner, p. 352.— Cunninghaniiaceae, Siebold, Fl. Jap. it. 101, 102.— Conacea?, Lindl. 

 Key, iVo. 232. (1835). 



Diagnosis. — Gymnogens with a repeatedly branched continuous stem, simple acerose leaves, 



and females in cones. 



These are noble trees or evergreen shrubs, with a branched trunk abounding in resin. 

 Wood with the ligneous 

 tissue marked with circu- 

 lar disks. Leaves linear, 

 acerose or lanceolate, en- 

 tire at the margins ; some- 

 times fascicled in conse- 

 quence of the non-develop- 

 ment of the branch to which 

 they belong ; when fasci- 

 cled, the primordial leaf to 

 which they arc then axil- 

 lary is membranous, and 

 enwraps them like a sheath. 

 Flowers $ $ , naked. $ 

 monandrous or monadel- 

 phous ; each floret consist- 

 ing of a single stamen, or 

 of a few united, collected 

 in a deciduous amentum, 

 about a common rachis ; 

 anthers 2-lobed or 

 lobed, bursting 

 nally ; often termir..'ited by 

 a crest, which is an uncon- 

 verted portion of the scale 

 out of which each stamen 

 is formed ; ^ U1 cones. 

 Ovary spread open, and 

 having the appearance of a 

 flat scale destitute of style 

 or stigma, and arising from 

 the axil of a membranous 

 bract. Ovule naked ; in 

 pans or several, on the face 

 of the ovary, inverted, and 

 consisting of 1 or '2 mem- 

 branes open at the apex, 

 together with a nucleus. 

 Fruit consisting of a cone 





many- 

 lougitudi- 



Fig. CLIV — 1'inus sylvestris. 



vi,!» 1 !;.., ( | LV r 1 ' ,f ideview ? f an anther: 2 carpellary scale and pair of inverted ovules; 3. inside of 

 upe scale and seeds ; 4. section of the seed, minus the wing at its base. 



