LIBOCEDRUS 
Libocedrus, Endlicher, Syn. Conif. 42 (1847); Bentham et Hooker, Gen. Pi. iii. 426 (1880); 
Masters, Journ. Linn. Soc. (Bot.), xxx. 19 (1892), and Gard. Chron. xxx. 467 (1900). 
Heyderia, Koch, Dendrologie, ii. 2, p. 179 (1873). 
Calocedrus, Kurz, Journ. Bot. xi. 196 (1873). 
Thuya, Baillon, Hist. Pl. xii. 34 (1892). 
EVERGREEN trees with aromatic odour, belonging to the tribe Cupressinez of the 
order Coniferze, closely resembling Thuya in habit and other characters, the branches 
as in that genus ending in frondose ‘‘branch-systems,” which are flattened in one 
plane and three- to four-pinnately divided, with their axes bearing scale-like leaves 
in four ranks. On the main axes the leaves are often remote by the lengthening 
of the nodes ; on the lateral axes they are closely imbricated, and vary in the different 
species in size and form, as detailed in the three sections below. In seedling 
plants the leaves are always linear-lanceolate and spreading. 
Flowers: moncecious with those of the two sexes on different branchlets, or 
rarely dicecious, solitary, terminal. Male flowers oblong, subsessile, with six to 
twenty stamens decussately opposite on a slender axis; filaments short, dilated 
into broadly ovate or orbicular scale-like peltate connectives, which bear usually 
four sub-globose anther-cells, two-valved and opening on the back. Female flowers 
oblong; subtended at the base by several pairs of leaf-like scales, which persist 
slightly enlarged under the fruit; composed of four or six decussately opposite 
acuminate bracts; lowest pair small, unfertile; next pair above fertile, bearing at 
the base two erect ovules on a minute accrescent ovular scale ; uppermost pair when 
present unfertile. 
Cones small, pendulous or erect, ripening and letting out the seed in the first 
year, persistent empty on the branchlets in the second year. Scales decussate, four 
or six; the lowermost pair short, thin, often reflexed ; the next pair long, thickened, 
woody, widely spreading at maturity, marked externally close to the apex by the 
shortly acuminate or long-beaked tip of the bract; third pair, when present, con- 
nate into an erect median partition. Seeds, two or one by abortion on each of the 
two fertile scales, with two lateral wings, one broad, oblique, nearly as long as the 
scale ; the other short, narrow, or rudimentary; cotyledons two. 
Eight species of Libocedrus have been described, remarkable for their distribu- 
tion over widely separated areas in the two hemispheres. Three sections may be 
distinguished :— 
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