Miscellaneous. 215 



tostrobus we shall find a score or more. Indeed in this plant a 

 branchlet springs from nearly every axil on the main branch, shoAV- 

 ing an extraordinary vigour. As vigour is opposed to a free deve- 

 lopment of foliage, the small thread-like leaves of Glyptostrohus are 

 naturally to be expected, and the free leaves distichously arranged 

 is the natural concomitant of the weaker Taxodium. Fortunately 1 

 am able to sustain this theory by actual facts. I have a seedling tree 

 ten years old, of remarkable vigour. It does not branch quite as 

 much as the typical Glyjitostrobiis, but much more freely than any 

 Tcuvodium. The result is, the foliage is aciculate, not distichoiis, and 

 just intermediate between the two supposed genera. But to help me 

 still more, my tree of Gh/2)tostrubus has pushed forth some weak 

 shoots with foliage identical in every respect with the intermediate 

 Taxodnmi. Specimens of all these are presented with this. In es- 

 tabHshing Gh/ptostrohus, Endhcher notes some trifling differences in 

 the scales of the cones between it and Taxodium ; but all familiar 

 with numerous individuals of some species of Coniferse, Biota orien- 

 taJis for instance, know how these vary. There can be no doubt, I 

 think, of the identity of the two ; and this will form another very 

 interesting link in the chain of evidence that the fl.ora of Japan is 

 closely alhed to that of the United States. 



If we were to look on the so-called leaves ofPinus oii^ Sciadopitys 

 as true leaves, we should find serious opposition to my theory that a 

 vigorous axial growth is opposed to the development of free leaves 

 in Coniferaj ; for we should see a class of plants which notoriously 

 adds but from three to six branches annually to each axis clothed 

 with foliage. But admitting them to be phylloid shoots, it confirms 

 our theory in a strong degree. We then see a plant loaded with 

 branchlets ; and so great is the tendency to use them instead of leaves, 

 that in some cases, as in Pimis strobus, P. excelsa, and others of a 

 softer class of PhyUoideee, the bud-scales are almost entirely confined 

 to the sheathing leaflets — ^just as in the very rugged, hard-leaved, 

 almost spinescent forms, like Pinus austriaca, we find them more 

 dependent on weU-developed adnate leaf-scales. In Abies of old 

 authors, A. excelsa for instance, we have a numerous-branching ten- 

 dency; hence we have true leaves, though partiaUy adnate, and no 

 necessity for phylloid branchlets. In Picea of Link, almost near 

 Abies, taking P. balsamea as a type, we have a rather weaker deve- 

 lopment, slower-growing and less hardy trees, and the leaves are 

 nearly free. Could some of the shoots of Abies be arrested in their 

 axial development, as in Larix, we should have the remainder in- 

 creased in length, and the fewer branchlets and two forms of leaves 

 just as in Larix. Should, on the other hand, the plant increase in 

 vigour, there would be no class of free leaves, adnation would be the 

 law, and metamorphosed branchlets prevail. Starting from Abies, 

 extra vigour makes the pine, extra delicacy the larch ; it is the 

 centre of two extremes. 



That the fascicles in Pinus are phylloid shoots, I think cannot be 

 questioned. Their position in the axils of the true leaves, as beau- 

 tifully shown in Pinus austriaca, indicates the probability ; their per- 



