112 CONIFERS. Juniperus. 



Tribe III. ABIETINE^. Scales of the fertile anients numerous, spirally imbricated, car- 

 j)ellary, each iu the axil of a thin distinct persistent bract (in Hower often exceeding and 

 in fruit mostly exceeded by the scale), in fruit becoming coriaceous or ligneous and form- 

 ing a strobile or cone. Ovules 2, adnate to the inner face of each scale near the base, in- 

 verted. Seeds separating from the scale at maturity, carrying away a conspicuous scarions 

 wing. Cotyledons 3 to 16. Male flowers spirally arranged and subtended by involucral 

 scales. Anther-cells 2, extrorse, parallel and contiguous u])on the sides of a very narrow 

 connective which is often surmounted by ascarious dilated inflexed tip. Leaves scattered, 

 or fascicled in Piutis, from linear to needle-shaped : leaf-buds scaly. 



* Cones maturing the first year, their bracts remaining membranaceous : leaves solitary, mostly 



entire : flowers on last year's branchlets. 

 ■i- Branchlets smooth, the leaf-scars not raised : bracts of the female anient nnich larger than the 



scales. 



7. Abies. Leaves sessile, leaving circular scars. Cones erect, their scales deciduous from the 



axis. Seeds with resin -vesicles. 



8. Pseudotsuga. Leaves petioled, the scars transversely oval. Cones pendulous, their scales 



jjersisteiit on the axis. Seeds without resin-vesicles. 

 +- -T- Branchlets rough from the prominent persistent leaf-bases : bracts of the female anient 

 smaller than the scales : cones pendulous, their scales persistent on the axis. 



9. Tsuga. Leaves petioled, with a single dorsal duct. Seeds with resin-vesicles. 



10. Picea. Leaves sessile, keeled on both the upper and lower sides, with two lateral (sometimes 



incomplete) ducts. Seeds without resin-vesicles. 



* * Cones maturing in the second year, their bracts becoming corky and thickened : leaves of 

 the perfect plant iu bundles of 2 to 5 (rarely solitary) from the axil of scarious bracts, their base 

 surrounded by a sheath of scarious bud-scales, usually seirulate. 



11. Pinus. Pollen 2- lobed. Resin-ducts inconstant in number and variously placed. 



Larix occidentalis, Nutt. Sjdva, iii. 143, t. 120 (Pinus NuUallii, Parlat. in DC. Prodr. 

 xvi'^. 412), the Western Larch, occurs on the headwaters of the Deschutes River, Oregon, and 

 northward to British Columbia, but has not been seei\ in California. The genus is distinguished 

 from Abies chiefly by the small cones with persistent scales and bracts, mostly vertical on the 

 slender drooping branches ami crimson when in flower, and conspicuously by the deciduous soft 

 and very slender leaves, flattened or somewhat tetragonal, and mostly fascicled at the extremities 

 of short lateral undeveloped luanchlets. L. occiuentalis is a tall slender tree (sometimes 150 

 feet high), with glabrous branchlets and nearly glabrous bud-scales, and ovoid cones nearly an 

 inch in length, the conspicuous bracts with an excurrent foliaceous midvein usually exceeding 

 the scale. L. Lyallii, Parlat., in the Cascade Mountains of Washington Territory, is a smaller 

 tree with densely pubescent bud-scales and branchlets, and with longer and more oblong cones. 



1. JUNIPERUS, Linn. Juxipeu. 



Flowers dicEcious or sometimes monoecious, the small solitary aments axillary, or ter- 

 minal upon short lateral branchlets ; scales few and (like the leaves) decussately 

 hinate or ternate. Staminate flowers ohlong-ovate ; anther-cells 4 to 8 under each 

 shield-shaped scale. Fertile anient of 2 or 3 series of fleshy scales, with 2 erect 

 ovules to each scale, in fruit becoming united into a blue-black or reddish druj^e, 

 ripening the second year. Seeds 1 to 12, ovate, bony. Cotyledons 2 (in a single 

 species more). — Low shrubs or trees, with mostly thin shreddy bark, and with 

 evergreen binate or ternate, free and suliulate or adnate and scale-like leaves; 

 branches and leaves not 2-ranked. 



A genus of the northern hemisphere, includinc 20 species belonging to the Old World (of 

 which two are also American), 4 Mexican and W. Indian species, and as many peculiar to the 

 United States. The wood of all the species is fine-grained, not resinous, exceedingly durable, the 

 heart- wood usually reddish and more or less fragrant. 



* Aments axillary: leaves ternate, free and jointed at base, rinear-std)ulate, 

 jjungent, channelled and white-glaucous above, not glandular-pitted. — Oxy- 

 CEDRUS, Spach. 



