Natural Family of Plants called Coniferse. 165 



The work of Richard already mentioned, although 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 their structure. We are indebted to Mr. Brown for having first pointed out 

 the real nature of the 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 pericai-pia 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 ovulum of Taxus (which is developed after fecunda- 

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

 in Ahietinece, and erect in Cupressinece and Taxinece, and he considered the 

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

 form the subject of this communication, belong to the Cupressinece, 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 group 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 Pinus, The genera comprised in the 

 Cupressinece are Cupressus, Thuja, Callitris, Taxodium, Juniperus, and the 

 subjects of the present paper. The structure of the fruit of Juniperus diiFers 

 only from Cupressus, in the peltate scales becoming confluent and fleshy as the 

 fruit advances towards maturity. This will be best understood by examining 

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

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

 Juniperus was related to Taxus ; but that is a mere point of analogy, for in 

 Juniperus the flowers and ovula are indefinite, and the scales or pericarpia 

 unite and become fleshy, while in Taxus the female spike is reduced to a 

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

 nient becomes succulent, and altogether resembles a fleshy arillus. 



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

 l)ut none of the genera are strictly confined to either, with the exception of 

 Taxodium and Cryptomeria to the northern, and Athrotaxis to the southern, 



VOL. XVIII. 2 



