CHAPTER TWELFTH. 



THE CONIFERS. 



EXERCISE LXIX. 

 Characters of the Coniferae. 



THERE is still another large group of widely-distrib- 

 uted plants that must be specially described. When we 

 speak of evergreens, everybody knows what we mean, and 

 thinks of pines, balsams, hemlocks, spruces, cedars, juni- 

 pers, arbor-vitaes, or whatever species are most familiar. 

 When we speak of cone-bearing trees or shrubs, it is not 

 quite the same group of plants that is thought of, for, 

 although everybody knows what cones are, yet untaught 

 and unobservant people would hardly think of a juniper- 

 berry as in any way allied to a cone. But, although cone- 

 bearing trees are everywhere to be found, and universally 

 known, yet very few people can tell when they flower, 

 what sort of flowers they bear, or what a cone really is ; 

 and yet their structure and habits in respect to flowering 

 and fruiting are even more remarkable than their general 

 appearance. They are monoecious or dioecious, and blos- 

 som in spring. Their flowers are in clusters, usually aments, 

 sometimes in the axils of the leaves, and sometimes at the 

 extremity of the branches. The fruit is two years in ripen- 

 ing, so that the full-grown cones, seen upon them in sum- 

 mer, were blossoms the year before. 



To study their flowers, you must begin in the spring, 

 and look carefully for the fertile and sterile aments, which 



