198 TAXODINEA! AND ARAUCARINE# 
of these neighbouring tribes bear resemblance to the 
Taxodinez. . 
This. group of Taxodinez trees comprise (as far as 
we are concerned with here), six different species ; 
the Athrotaxis, the two Sequoias, the Cryptomerias, 
the Deciduous Cypress, and the Japanese Umbrella 
Tree (Sciadopitys Verticillata). 
The points of difference between the various 
members of this little confraternity are so apparent, 
and the points of resemblance so un-apparent to the 
ordinary man, that no effort on the part of any 
intelligence department need be called upon to 
discriminate between them. The puzzle, indeed, is 
to find the links that bind, not the distance that 
divides, and these are points to be sought for in the 
more minute points of flower and cone structure. 
The members of this little coterie of alikes yet 
unlikes originate from different and widely scattered 
geographical regions, but they have one point in 
common. They, all of them, date back to remote 
geological periods, and all of them somehow look as 
if they did. They all of them appear as if they 
once had an intimate connection with and a direct 
interest in those dark, dank, dismal places, that 
“‘ wetter wet and slimier slime”? (as Rupert Brooke, 
the poet, describes such scenes and haunts), which 
pictures only have made us acquainted with, and 
where the great Amphibia of a carboniferous system— 
from all we hear—were wont to wander and to wade- 
They all of them wear an old-world look. In the 
Sequoias, the scattered leaves that cling to the older 
stems like barnacles to a hulk, have a left and for- 
gotten expression of appearance, as if their presence 
were unwelcome among the newer generations of 
foliage, as if their dinginess were hardly in keeping 
with the brighter green of the more closely clustered 
leaves that grow upon the latest edition of the new 
