CCXXni. CONIFEE^. 739 



coriaceous. Seeds oblong, erect, straight, exalbuminous ; testa membranous. 

 Embeto conformable to the seed ; cotyledons fleshy, oblong, compressed ; radicle short, 

 near the hilum. 



ONLY GENUS. 

 Batis. 



The affinities of Batis are very obscure ; in habit it resembles Chmnpodiacea, but the structure of 

 its flowers would appear to indicate a closer analogy with Reaumuriaceee, TamarisdnecB, and some 

 ZygophyUecB through Tribtdus. 



Batis inhabits the seashores of tropical America. 



CCXXIII. CONIFERJE, Jussieu. 



(Abietin^, Cupebssin^, Taxing, L.-G. Richard, et Gnete^, Blume. — 

 Gtmnospbemaettm pars, Brongniart.) 



Elowees diclinous, amentaceous, achlamydeous. Ovaet, style and stigma 0; 

 OVULES naked; miceopyle gaping, receiving directly the pollen-grains. Seed albumi- 

 nous. Embeyo with 2 or more cotyledons. — Stem woody. Leaves scattered, opposite, 

 whorled or fascicled, 



Tebes, or UNDBESHEUBS Or SHEUBS, usually resinous, wood without proper vessels, 

 and composed of fibres with one or more series of concave disks ; buds naked or 

 protected by scales. Leaves exstipulate, usually persistent, scattered, distichous, 

 opposite, ternate, imbricate, or fascicled on shortened branches, simple, entire, or 

 rarely denticulate, or very rarely lobed, usually linear or acicular, often boat-shaped 

 or scale-like, rarely elliptic or flabellate, always with simple nerves, very rarely re- 

 duced to teeth in the axils of which spring branches dilated into phyllodes [Phyllo- 

 cladus"], sometimes dimorphous (some acicular, the others scale-like) on the same 

 individual (Juniper). Flowbes in catkins, monoecious or dioecious, achlamydeous; 

 catkins $ composed of antheriferous scales ; anthers of 1-20 parallel or radiating 

 contiguous or distant cells, adnate to the scale (dilated or peltate), which serves as 

 connective and filament, sometimes pendulous {Araucaria), dehiscence longitudinal, 

 rairely transverse ; pollen sometimes of 2 rather turgid vesicles, united by an in- 

 termediate membrane {Pinus, Abies, Dacrydium, Podocarpus, &c.) ; sometimes of 

 very small smooth globose grains {Arauca^-ia, Sequoia, Gunninghamia, Cupressinew, 

 Taxineoe). Plowees ? reduced to naked ovules,' usually orthotropous, springing from 

 spreading scales, or a cupuliform disk ; micropyle gaping, endostome often prolonged 

 into a styloid tube. Feuit sometimes forming a dry strobilus, or fleshy by the 

 union of the thickened and often hardened scales, sometimes drupe-like with a 

 fleshy coriaceous or crustaceous testa; sometimes surrounded by a fleshy cupule. 

 Seed naked, often winged; albumen horny or fleshy-farinaceous, or oily, rarely 

 ruminate {Torreya), originally containing several rudimentary embryos, of which one 

 only is developed. Embsyo axile, usually antitropous, often furnished with a very 



' [The outer coat of the so-called naked ovule of point which has 'given rise to much discussion and 

 Cmiferts and Gycadece is by various botanists con- volumes of literature. TJnder a third theory the outer 

 sidered to be a true but incomplete ovary ; a disputed coat is regarded as of the nature of a dislc.— Ed.] 



3b 2 



