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THE GENUS MICROCACHRYS. 



I. HISTORICAL. 



A single species genus established by Sir Joseph Hooker in 1845 upon an 

 endemic pine in Tasmania, and who gives a beautiful plate of it in his " Flora 

 Tasmanica." 



II. SYSTEMATIC. 



It is a little shrub with small, decussate leaves. Flowers dioecious, the 

 males in terminal spikes. Male amentum ovoid, microsphorophyll shortly stipitate, 

 with an incurved scale-like connective. Pollen grains three-cornered or somewhat 

 globose. Female amentum terminal, macrosphorangia spirally imbricate, with an 

 incurved ovule to each, ultimately becoming succulent in the small ovoid fruit 

 cone. Seeds nearly erect, three-sided, and not winged. 



It has been confounded with the cognate genera, Diselma, Pherosphc^ra, 

 and Dacrydium, owing to its various organs being identical with those of these 

 genera ; for instance, the leaves morphologically resemble those of Diselma, 

 whilst the fruits or cones are not unlike those of the two latter genera. 



It differs from Podocarpus mainly in the form of the pollen grains, the 

 aggregate fruits, and the woody axis of the spike. 



Microcachrys tctragona. 



Hook. t. in Lond. Journ. Bot., vol. IV, p. 150 and Fl. Tas., p. 358, t. WO. 



Habitat. 



Summits of Western Mountain Range, Tasmania. 



I. HISTORICAL. 



(Vide svipra.) 



II. SYSTEMATIC. 



A low rambling bush, with tough straggling fore-angled branches and 

 branchlets so formed by the leaves. Leaves about | line long, closely imbricate, 

 ovate, rhomboid, obtuse, convex at the back. Male amentum terminal, solitary, 



