744 CCXXIII. CONIFERS. 



Stone-Pine {Finns Pined) is a very picturesque tree of the Mediterranean region, of which the seeds, 

 called ' pignona doux,' are of an oily, mild and agreeable taste, as is also the case with the seeds of P. 

 Cembra, an alpine species, which are used as food by the Siberians. 



Linnaeus informs us that the Lapps and Eskimos, for want of cereals, find material for bread 

 in the inner layer of the bark of Finus sylvestris and Abies alba, which they bake slightly and reduce to 

 flour ; with this flour they make thin cakes, which they keep a long time, and consider excellent. From 

 the young shoots of several kinds of Fir may be prepared an antiscorbutic beer [as Spruce beer from the 

 tops of Abies excelsa'] ; those of Daciydium cupressinum, a fine New Zealand tree, contain a slightly bitter 

 resinous matter, of which Captain Cook availed himself to prepare a drink with which he cured his 

 sailors of scurvy. The bark of Finus Pinea, Cembra, maritima, &c., was formerly valued for its astrin- 

 gency, and is used in tanning leather. On the old roots of P. Massoniana a peculiar brown scabrid 

 fungus grows, which is waxy and whitish within, and of which a decoction is used by the Chinese and 

 Japanese in diseases of the lungs and bladder. Dammara onentalis is a large-leaved tree of the Malayan 

 Archipelago, and yields Dammar, a white and hard resin, analagous to copal ["sed throughout India to 

 render fabrics waterproof]. The Kauri (D. australis) is one of the tallest trees in New Zealand ; a resin 

 exudes from its trunk which is also found in semi-fossilized blocks, which bear the name of Kapia. It 

 resembles elemi ; the natives pound and burn it to obtain a soot, with which they tattoo their faces [and 

 it is largely imported into England for the manufacture of varnish]. The seeds of Araucaria bradliensis 

 and imbricata are edible, like our Chesnuts [those of A. BidwiUii, in Australia, form the chief food of 

 whole tribes of natives during certain seasons], as are those of some species of Podocarptes, and especially 

 of P. neriifolia. The hard light and durable wood of P. Totara is much sought by the New Zealanders 

 for the construction of canoes [it is the best wood in those islands]. [The wood of Dacrydium 

 Franldinii, a magnificent tree, confined to a very limited area on the west coast of Tasmania, is a beautiful 

 furniture wood of a golden colour.] Amber is a fossil resin, procured from the lignites of the Baltic 

 shores ; the most transparent pieces are worked into ornaments ; varnish and medicine are also prepared 

 from it. Petroleum, a liquid bitumen, of which abundant springs are found in some countries, has the 

 same origin as amber. 



Tbibe II. OUPBESSINE^, L.-G. Rich. 



Trees or shrubs, resinous, branched ; iranches mostly scattered, cylindric or 

 sometimes angular ; iuds naked, or rarely scaly. Leaves persistent, opposite or 

 whorled in threes, or scattered, very often adnate and decurrent, narrowly linear 

 or scale-like, usually small, stiff, imbricate, rarely caducous (Taxodium). Flowers 

 monoecious or dioecious, stamens and ovuliferous scales inserted on a common axis, 

 usually ebracteate," imbricate, and forming terminal or lateral ca.tkins. Catkins $ : 

 Stamens numerous, naked, nearly horizontal ; filaments short, thick, prolonged into 

 a scale-like connective, and peltate excentricaUy ; anthers 2-3-celled or more, separate, 

 adnate, ovoid or oblong, dehiscence longitudinal ; pollen globose. — Catkins $ : 

 Ovuliferous scales few, peltate, very often mucronate at the back, below the tip, 

 whorled in one or several series around a more or less shortened axis ; ovules solitary 

 geminate or numerous, sessile, inserted at the base or towards the middle of the 

 scale, orthotropous ; micropyle superior. Fruit a cone with woody or fleshy scales, 

 closely connivent, or sometiaies bony within {Juniperus drupacea). Seeds solitary or 

 geminate, rarely numerous ; testa thin, woody or bony, angular or with a membranous 

 margin. Bmbrto antitropous, in the axis of a fleshy scanty albumen ; cotyledons 2, 

 rarely 3-9, oblong, obtuse ; radicle cylindric, superior. 



[See Sub-tribe IV. Cupressinece, p. 742] , 



