650 



HISTORY OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 



the last, is frequently included in tlie amen- 

 taceie. 



The birch and alder are well known winter 

 trees. Their hark is astringent ; that of the 

 birch (lelula alba) and others is used for tan- 

 ning. The juice of the same plant is sweet- 

 ish, flows in considerable abundance from a cut 

 in the bark, and is made into a kind of wine. 



CupuiiFEK^, Rich. (Part of the amentacece 

 of Jussieu.) Containing trees with alternate, 

 simple leaves, furnished with caducous stipules 

 at their base. The flowers are always unisexual, 

 and almost always monoecious. The male 

 flowers form cylindrical, scaly catkins. Each 

 flower presents a simple, trilobate, or calyciform 

 scale, on the upper face of which are attached 

 from six to a greater number of stamina, without 

 any appearance of pistil. The female flowers 

 are generally axillar, sometimes solitary, some- 

 times grouped into capitula or catkins. In all 

 cases, each of them is covered, in part or in 

 whole, by a scaly cupula, and presents an inferior 

 ovary, having its limb not very prominent, and 

 forming a small irregularly toothed rim. From 

 the summit of the ovary rises a short style, 

 which is terminated by two or three subulate or 

 flat stigmas. This ovary has two, three, or a 

 greater number of cells, each containing one or 

 two suspended ovules. The fruit is always an 

 acorn, generally unilocular, often monospermous 

 by abortion, always accompanied by a cupule, 

 which sometimes covers the fi-uit entirely like a 

 pericarp, as in the chestnut and beech. The 

 seed is composed of a very largo embryo, desti- 

 tute of endosperm. 



This family, which is composed of genera fre- 

 quently placed in the family of amentacese, com- 

 prehends the genera quercus, corylus, carpimis, 

 castanea, and faffus. It has some affinity to the 

 coniferse and betulineje; but the former are suffi- 

 ciently distinguished by their general aspect, the 

 structure of their female flowers, and the endo- 

 sperm of their embryo, and the latter by their 

 female flowers being dis^posed in cones, their 

 simple ovary, &c. The other families which 

 have also been formed of the amentacese, such 

 as the salicineje and myracese, are more particu- 

 larly distinguished from the cupuliferse by hav- 

 ing the ovary free. 



The species consist of some of our most useful 

 timber trees; and the properties are generally 

 astringent, stomachic, and tonic. The bark of 

 quercus roburia used for tanning in this country, 

 and of q. tinctoria in America. The seeds abound 

 in fixed oil, and are used as food. Galls, which 

 are employed in making ink, are excrescences 

 of a species of oak. Cork is the bark of another 

 species, q. auber. 



CoNiPKR^, J. Rich. This useful family is 

 composed of trees of the pine and fir kind. 

 Their leaves, which are coriaceous and stiflF, are 



persistent in all the species, excepting the larch 

 and gingo. They are sometimes linear, subu- 

 late, aggregated in bundles of from two to five, 

 and accompanied at the base by a small scariose 

 sheath; or they are in the form of imbricated 

 or lanceolate scales. The flowers are always 

 unisexual, and generally disposed in cones or 

 catkins. The male flowers consist essentially 

 each of a stamen, sometimes naked, sometimes 

 accompanied by a scale in the axilla, or on the 

 lower surface of which it is placed. Not unfre- 

 quently several stamina are united together by 

 their filaments, and their anthers, which are uni- 

 locular, remain distinct, or unite together. The 

 inflorescence of the female flowers is very varia- 

 ble, although they generally form cones or scaly 

 catkins. Thus they are sometimes solitary, ter- 

 minal or axillar, or they are collected in a fleshy 

 or dry involucre. Each of these flowers has a 

 monosepalous calyx, adherent to the ovary, which 

 is in part, or entirely inferior. Its limb, which 

 is sometimes tubular, is entire, or has two divari- 

 cate lobes, glandular at their inner surface, and 

 which have been generally considered as two 

 stigmas. The ovary is one-celled, and contains 

 a single ovule. At its summit it commonly 

 presents a small cicatrix, which is the true 

 stigma. Sometimes the female flowers are erect 

 in the axilla of the scales, or in the involucre 

 in which they are placed; sometimes they are 

 reversed and united two and two, by one of 

 their sides, to the inner surface, and towards the 

 base of the scales which form the cone. The 

 fruit is generally a scaly cone or a galbule of 

 which the scales are sometimes fleshy, unite and 

 represent a kind of berry, as in the junipers. 

 Each particular fruit, that is, each fecundated 

 pistil, has a pericarp which is frequently crus- 

 taceous, sometimes furnished with a membran- 

 ous, marginal wing. The proper tegument of 

 the seed is adherent to the pericarp, and covers 

 a kernel composed of a fleshy endosperm, con- 

 taining an axile and cylindrical embryo, of 

 which the radicle is united to the endosperm, 

 and its cotyledonary extremity divided into 

 two, three, four, and even as many as ten coty- 

 ledons. 



The elder Richard, in his splendid work on 

 the conifera;, divides the family into three orders 

 thus : 



1. Taxine^ : female flowers distinct from each 

 other, attached to a scale, or in a cupula ; fruit 

 simple, as podocarpus, dacrydium, taxus, salis- 

 buria, phyllocladus, ephedra. 



2. CupRESsiNEJE : female flowers erect, col- 

 lected several together in the axilla of scales 

 which are not numerous, forming a galbule, 

 which is sometimes fleshy, as juniperus, tlmya, 

 callitrix, cupressus, taxodium. 



3. Abietine^:. To this order belong all the 

 genera in which the female flowers are reversed. 



