

INTEODTICTION. 



The natural Order CoNiFERyE or Pinaceje is now generally 

 divided into three great families : — viz. Abietinae, Cupressinae, 

 and Juniperinse ; and although attaining, as many of them 

 do, to huge dimensions and great utility as timber trees, they 

 possess an organization inferior to that of other forest trees, 

 and are classed by botanists under the term Gi/mnosperma (naked 

 seed), because the female flowers have no pericarpal covering, 

 but consist of naked ovules, to which fertilization is communi- 

 cated directly from the pollen, without the interposition of 

 style or stigma, and which is analogous to the ova of reptiles 

 in the animal kiugdom. The male flowers consist of catkins, 

 formed of a number of scales, in the body of which the pollen 

 is contained, in two or more cells, while the female organs, or 

 naked ovules, originate from the large scales of the cones, 

 towards their base. 



In the section Abietinae are placed the Genus Pinus, Abies, 

 ^rj Picea, Larix, Pseudolarix, Cedrus, Araucaria, Cunninghamia, 

 52 and Dammara, with the doubtful one Sciadopitys, all of which 

 i are timber trees, distinguished by their slender, needle-like, or 

 <M-j flat linear and lanceolate leaves, and branches in whorls, the 

 ^ lower ones always dying off" as the trees grow old. The leaves 



