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friends in the West. Passing over Europe, I must take you as far 

 -east as China and Japan, and the country north of China proper. 

 "There we have another and a most interesting home of conifers. 

 Indeed, Japan in particular is rich in them, having as many as 41 

 species, of which number about twenty belong to the country ; 

 some of them being true pines and firs, and others arbor vitses, 

 junipers, yews and kinds alHed to yews, with a fruit more or less, 

 in appearance, Hke a plum. The Cryptomeria japonica, already 

 spoken of as a favourite tree with the Japanese, may be seen grow- 

 ing not far from Folkestone with the Douglas fir and the 

 WelUngtoiiia gigantea as neighbours. Of China, I cannot say more 

 than that there are about twenty species, whilst others occur a long 

 way up the northern coast. This, then, is an interesting fact in 

 distribution. The species of East and North-east Asia are quite a 

 different lot from those of West and North-west America. There 

 Was most likely a time when the Continents were all united in the 

 north, long before the thirty-six miles of water caUed the Behring's 

 Straits separated Asia from America, and it may be that many 

 species were driven southward during the glacial period. But this 

 does not account for so many being peculiar to Japan, and it is 

 therefore beheved that this country may be a special centre of 

 distribution. Of the Himalayas and their conifers, I cannot stop 

 to speak. As to India itself, the story is soon told, for no repre- 

 sentatives of the order are native there. I wish to touch upon a 

 question that comes under the head of physiology. In the main, 

 the pollen of the staminate flowers is carried by the wind and 

 deposited on the ovules. Usually when the wind is the agent, the 

 flowers concerned are without colour and scent. The pollen of 

 many conifers is extremely abundant, as may be proved by anyone 

 who shakes a branch of any pine when the pollen Is mature. In 

 the neighbourhood ol pine forests such a quantity of pollen is shed, 

 that it has been called " sulphur rain. " A curious provision is 

 made for the protection of the pollen, until it is shaken oat by the 

 wind, when a good deal rises Hke dust and reaches the young 

 cones, which are often on the upper branches of the tree. I have 

 looked at a good many small cones in the hope of finding some 

 with the scales open, so as to let the pollen reach the ovules, but 

 the scales seem always to be tightly pressed down. They must, 

 however, of course, separate sufficiently for the purpose. When 

 the seeds of a pine are ripe and ready to fly away " on the wings 

 of the wind," supported by their own wings, the scales of the cones 

 separate, in some cases springing sharply apart, and away go the 

 seeds — away they go to find a resting place where they may grow. 

 But they do not take their flight in wet weather, for then the 

 ■woody scales close tightly and shut them in. Thus, you see, it is 



