Natural Family of Plants vailed Coniferte. 165 



The work of Richaid already mentioned, althongh of great value in a sy- 

 stematic point of view, threw comparatively little additional light upon the 

 organization of this remarkable family of plants, from the circumstance of its 

 learned author having either misunderstood or wholly overlooked many parts 

 of tlieir structure. We are indebted to Mr. Brown for having first pointed out 

 the real nature of tlie parts of the female flower in this family. Richard, as is 

 well known, adopted in a great measure the views of preceding botanists. He 

 regarded the expanded pericarpia as bractes, the ovula as the flowers, the in- 

 tegument as the calyx, and the apex of the nucleus as the stigma, and the fleshy 

 outer integument of the ovuhini of Taxas (which is developed after fecunda- 

 tion) as a kind of involucrum. He moreover describes the flowers as inverted 

 in Ahlet'ineœ, and erect in Capressi/ita' and Taxiiiecv, aud he considered the 

 ovulum (nucleus) to follow the direction of the flowers. The two genera, which 

 form tlie subject of this communication, belong to tlie Capresshiea', a group di- 

 stinguished, as 1 have before stated, by the tendency of their reproductive or- 

 gans to become indefinite, by their persistent pericarpia, naked buds, and other 

 peculiarities of habit. To his character of the grouj) Richard added the form 

 of the mature female spike, which is usually a galbulus, composed of peltate 

 scales ; but in the two genera which I am about to describe, that organ has 

 assumed nearly the form of a cone, as in Phins. The genera comprised in the 

 Cupresshiea' are Capressas, Tliaja, C'allitris, Taxodlum, JaN/peras, and the 

 subjects of the present paper. The structure of the fruit of JiDiijierus differs 

 only from Capressas, \i\ tlie peltate scales becoming confluent and flesliy as the 

 fruit advances towards maturitv. This will be best understood by examininii- 

 the female spike at an early stage, when it is scarcely possible to distinguish 

 between the two genera. From its flesliy fruit some have supposed that 

 Janiperas was related to Ta.ias ; but that is a mere point of analogy, for in 

 Jun'iperas the flowers and ovula arc indefinite, and tlie scales or pericarpia 

 unite and become flesliy, while in Taras the female spike is reduced to a 

 single flower, with a solitary, completely naked ovulum, whose outer integu- 

 ment becomes succulent, and altogether resembles a fleshy arillus. 



The species of this group are pretty ecjually distributed in both hemispheres ; 

 but none of the genera are strictly confined to either, with the exception of 

 Taxodlum and Cri/ptomeria to the northein, and Jtlirut((.iis to the southern, 



VOL. XVI IF. z 



