172 THE SECOND BOOK OF BOTANY. 



in April. The various species are mostly dioecious, 

 and the catkins are very small. Observed only when 

 in fruit, you would scarcely regard the juniper as a 

 coniferous plant, but the $ catkin, when in flower, is 

 seen to consist of from three to six scales, bearing a 

 variable number of ovules precisely in the same man- 

 ner as the pine. But, in ripening, these scales grow 

 together, turn purple, and form a berry-like fruit as 



FIG. 826. FIG. 827. FIG. 828. 



large as a pea. Fig. 326 represents one of these 

 berries with its scaly bracts underneath, while Fig. 

 327 shows one of its enlarged bony seeds. The ber- 

 ries ripen the second year from the flower. 



The ground-hemlock is another coniferous plant 

 with a berry-like fruit. Its ? flower is more simple 

 than those we have been examining, for it consists of 

 a single ovule, without even an accompanying scale. 

 This straggling bush, two or three feet high, is found 

 in shady places, along streams, on thin, rocky soils, 

 from Canada to Pennsylvania and Kentucky, and 

 south along the Alleghanies. Its linear leaves are 

 nearly an inch in length, in two opposite rows, along 

 the branches. It blossoms in April. Fig. 328 repre- 



