44 2 ConiferceL ibocedrus. 



10. LIBOCfiDRUS. 



Handsome evergreen trees with imbricated scale- like leaves 

 and monoecious flowers. Fruit oval, consisting of 4 leathery or 

 ligneous valvate unequal scales. Seeds winged, 1 or 2 at the 

 base of each scale. Species few, from New Zealand and South- 

 western and North- Western America. The name is from 

 libanos, incense, and cedrus, the cedar, in allusion to the 

 odoriferous wood. 



1. L. decurrens, syn. Thuja Craigiana or Corrigiana and Th. 

 gigdntea of English gardens. This is a very beautiful and dis- 

 tinct evergreen tree of compact erect habit, with a remarkably 

 stout trunk. It is generally known under the latter name, but 

 unless this genus be merged in Thuja, this is its proper position, 

 on account of the difference in its fruit from that of the true 

 Arbor-Vitses. The branchlets are numerous, alternate, and 

 plaited, or flattened laterally. Leaves bright rich glossy green, 

 small linear and 'scale-like, quadrifariously imbricated, acute at 

 the free apex, with long decurrent base, persistent and elongated 

 on the older branches. The glandless decurrent leaves and 

 columnar habit readily distinguish this from all its allies. 

 Fruit ovate or oblong, erect, smooth. Scales furnished with a 

 small recurved prickle just below the apex. A native of the 

 Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, where it attains a height 

 of 120 to 140 feet. 



2. L. Chilensis. A handsome tree, growing 60 to 80 feet 

 high in its native country. Branches compressed, spreading 

 and pendulous. Leaves oblong-trigonous, appressed, obtuse, 

 glaucous green. Fruit ovate, composed of four woody scales. 

 This ornamental species is a native of the Andes of Chili, and 

 rather tender in this country. 



3. L. tetrdgona. This is also a South American species, 

 extending from Valdivia to Magellan's Straits, and ranging 

 according to locality from a dwarf bush to a lofty tree 1 20 feet 

 or more in height. With us it is a shrub of compact pyramidal 

 growth, with spreading depressed branches. Branchlets tetra- 

 gonal, densely clothed with small ovate scale-like obtuse pale 

 green leaves, imbricated in four rows. Fruit consisting of 6 

 coriaceous scales in three pairs. This is a somewhat hardier 

 species than the last. 



L. Doniana is an exceedingly beautiful species from New 

 Zealand, but it will not bear our Winters. 



