

CONIFERS 81 



thickened, conical, and more or less incurved on the upper scales ; seeds dark 

 chestnut-brown, usually rather less than -fa' long, with narrow wings. 



A bushy tree, rarely 30 high, with a short trunk 12'-15' in diameter, slender 

 branches covered with close smooth compact bark, bright purple after the falling of 

 the leaves, soon becoming dark brown; more often a shrub with numerous stems 

 6-12 tall forming a broad open irregular head. Bark thin, dark reddish brown, 

 broken into brown flat ridges, and separating on the surface into elongated thin 

 slightly attached long-persistent scales. Wood light, soft, very close-grained. 



Distribution. California, dry hills and low slopes, Mt. JEtna, in central Napa 

 County through Lake County to Red Mountain on the east side of Ukiah Valley, 

 Mendocino County, and in Trinity County between Shasta and Whiskey town. 



Occasionally cultivated in western and southern Europe as an ornamental tree. 



12. CHAMJBCYPARIS. 



Tall resinous pyramidal trees, with thin scaly or deeply furrowed bark, nodding 

 leading shoots, spreading branches, flattened, often deciduous or ultimately terete 

 branchlets 2-ranked in one horizontal plane, pale fragrant durable heartwood, thin 

 nearly white sapwood, and naked buds. Leaves scale-like, ovate, acuminate, with 

 slender spreading or appressed tips, opposite in pairs, becoming brown and woody 

 before falling, on vigorous sterile branches and young plants needle-shaped or linear- 

 lanceolate and spreading. Flowers minute, momficious, terminal, the two sexes on 

 separate branchlets, the staminate oblong, of numerous decussate stamens, with 

 short filaments enlarged into ovate connectives decreasing in size from below upward 

 and bearing usually 2 pendulous globose anther-cells; the pistillate subglobose, 

 composed of usually 6 decussate fertile peltate scales bearing at the base of the ovu- 

 liferous scales 2-5 erect bottle-shaped ovules. Fruit an erect globose cone maturing 

 at the end of the first season, surrounded at the base by the sterile lower scales of 

 the flowers, formed by the enlargement of the ovule-bearing scales, abruptly dilated, 

 club-shaped and flattened at the apex, bearing the remnants of the flower-scales as 

 short prominent points or knobs; persistent on the branches after the escape of the 

 seeds. Seeds 1-5, erect on the slender stalk-like base of the scale, subcylindrical 

 and slightly compressed ; seed-coat of 2 layers, the outer thin and membranaceous, 

 the inner thicker and crustaceous, produced into broad lateral wings; cotyledons 2, 

 longer than the superior radicle. 



Chamaecyparis is confined to the Atlantic and Pacific coast regions of North 

 America, and to Japan and Formosa. Six species are distinguished. Of exotic species 

 the Japanese Retinosporas, Chamazcyparis obtnxa, Endl., and Chamcecyparis pisifera, 

 Endl., with their numerous abnormal forms are familiar garden plants in all tem- 

 perate regions. 



Chamcecyparis, is from xa^al, on the ground, and uir<{pi<r(ros, cypress. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES. 



Bark thin, divided into flat ridges. 



Branchlets slender, often compressed; leaves dull blue-green, usually conspicuously 



glandular. 1. C. thyoides (A, C). 



Branchlets stout, slightly flattened or terete ; leaves dark blue-green, usually without 



glands. 2. C. Nootkatensis (B, G). 



Bark thick, divided into broad rounded ridges. 



Branchlets slender, compressed ; leaves bright green, conspicuously glandular. 



3. C. Lawsoniana (G). 



