PINACE.E 65 



during their first winter, becoming darker the following year, the lateral branchlets de- 

 ciduous, 3'-4' long, spreading at right angles to the branch, or in the form with acicular 

 leaves pendulous or erect and often 6' long. Bark l'-2' thick, light cinnamon-red and 

 divided by shallow fissures into broad flat ridges separating on the surface into long thin 

 closely appressed fibrous scales. Wood light, soft, not strong, easily worked, light or dark 

 brown, sometimes nearly black; largely used for construction, railway-ties, posts, fences, 

 and in cooperage. 



Distribution. River swamps usually submerged during several months of the year, 

 low wet banks of streams, and the wet depressions of Pine-barrens from southern New 

 Jersey and southern Delaware southward generally near the coast to the Everglade Keys, 

 southern Florida, and through the Gulf-coast region to the valley of Devil River, Texas, 

 through Louisiana to southern Oklahoma, through southern and western Arkansas to 

 southeastern Missouri, and through western and northern Mississippi to Tishomingo County, 

 and in western Tennessee and Kentucky to southern Illinois and southwestern Indiana; 

 most common and of its largest size '*n the south Atlantic and Gulf states, often covering 

 with nearly pure forests great river swamps. From the coast of North Carolina to southern 

 Florida, southern Alabama and eastern and western Louisiana the form with acicular 

 leaves (Taxodium distichum var. imbricarium, Sarg.) is not rare as a small tree in Pine- 

 barren ponds and swamps. 



Often cultivated as an ornamental tree in the northern United States, and in the coun- 

 tries of temperate Europe, especially the var. imbricarium (as Glyptostrobus sinensis Hort. 

 not Endl.). 



9. LIBOCEDRUS Endl. 



Tall resinous aromatic trees, with scaly bark, spreading branches, flattened branchlets 

 disposed in one horizontal plane and forming an open 2-ranked spray and often ultimately 

 deciduous, straight-grained durable fragrant wood, and naked buds. Leaves scale-like, in 

 4 ranks, on leading shoots nearly equally decussate, closely compressed or spreading, dying 

 and becoming woody before falling, on lateral flattened branchlets much compressed, 

 conspicuously keeled, and nearly covering those of the other ranks; on seedling plants 

 linear-lanceolate and spreading. Flowers monoecious, solitary, terminal, the two sexes on 

 different branchlets; male oblong, with 12-16 decussate filaments dilated into broad con- 

 nectives usually bearing 4 subglobose anther-cells; female oblong, subtended at base by 

 several pairs of leaf-life scales slightly enlarged and persistent under the fruit, composed 

 of 6 acuminate short-pointed scales, those of the upper and middle ranks much larger 

 than those of the lower rank, ovate or oblong, fertile and bearing at the base of a minute 

 accrescent ovuliferous scale 2 erect ovules. Fruit an oblong cone maturing in one season, 

 with subcoriaceous scales marked at the apex by the free thickened mucronulate border 

 of the enlarged flower-scales, those of the lowest pair ovate, thin, reflexed, much shorter 

 than the oblong thicker scales of the second pair widely spreading at maturity; those of 

 the third pair confluent into an erect partition. Seeds in pairs, erect on the base of the 

 scale; seed-coat membranaceous, of 2 layers, produced into thin unequal lateral wings, one 

 narrow, the other broad, oblique, nearly as long as the scale; cotyledons 2, about as long 

 as the superior radicle. 



Libocedrus is confined to western North America, western South America, where it is 

 distributed from Chili to Patagonia, New Zealand, New Caledonia, New Guinea, Formosa, 

 and southwestern China. Eight species are distinguished. 



Libocedrus, from Xi/3ds and Cedrus, relates to the resinous character of these trees. 



1 . Libocedrus decurrens Torr. Incense Cedar. 



Leaves oblong-obovate, decurrent and closely adnate on the branchlets except at the 

 callous apex, ' long on the ultimate lateral branchlets to nearly \' long on leading shoots, 

 those of the lateral ranks gradually narrowed and acuminate at apex, keeled and glan- 





