IN CALIFORNIA 41 



CURIOUS CONIFERS 



The conifers contain both the largest and the 

 smallest trees in the world, as well as those enduring 

 the greatest extremes of heat and cold. Nearly all 

 are evergreen but a few are deciduous, the most 

 common of the latter class being the larches. 



Ginkgo biloba, the maidenhair tree from northern 

 China, is a deciduous conifer whose botanical affin- 

 ities seem to be with the conifers on one side and 

 with the ferns on the other, though but little like 

 either. The leaves are fan-shaped and notched just 

 like a giant maidenhair fern, and unbranched veins 

 extend in radiating lines to the edge of the leaf 

 precisely as they do in the fern. The fruit is in no 

 wise a cone as we know cones, but is a fleshy drupe 

 not unlike the fruit of the yews, which by some 

 botanists are removed from the conifers though 

 closely related to the maidenhair tree. 



Another curious conifer is Agathis robusta, the 

 dammar or kauri pine, native to Queensland and 

 many islands in Australasia. If the ginkgo is to be 

 called a fern tree by reason of its quaint foliage, 

 the agathis should be called the lily tree for a like 

 reason. The leaves of the kauri pine are, however, 

 much handsomer than those of any lily and also 

 much thicker and of more substantial texture. There 

 is no other conifer and scarcely a tree of any kind 

 that rivals this tree in beauty of foliage, and very 

 few who view it are easily convinced of its botan- 

 ical relationship. 



It is interesting to Californians to know that we 

 have a conifer which is curious by reason of its 

 isolation from its half dozen or more sister species. 

 The incense cedar, Libocedrus decurrens, is the only 

 representative of the genus in North America. 

 Others are found in various parts of the world, thus, 



