
BRANCHES AND LEAVES IN CONIFER, 653 
those shoots which develope into permanent branches exhibit, as might easily be 
supposed, irregularities as to the succession of fructification. Figs. 1-5 are 
from “nature-prints” or impressions of fallen ramules. Figs. 1 and 2 show a 
few of the old adhering cones of the previous year, with the male catkins of 
the current year at the terminal point of nearly every branchlet. Figs. 3, 4, and 
5 show the fallen ramule with the male catkins only. As the above process 
of “cladoptosis” goes on from year to year, it so happens that in old plants 
there is an annual shedding of the ramules of the third previous season ; while 
the ramules of two years’ growth remain on all the winter. From a cause 
afterwards to be explained, young plants of Arbor-vite shed no ramules; 
neither do the young plants of any of the other of the Cupressinez to be 
described. 
Libocedrus decurrens.—As this plant has not yet flowered with me, I am not 
able to speak with certainty as to the number of years its ramules remain 
attached to the tree before they are cast off; but, like Thaja, the older trees of 
Libocedrus annually cast their ramules in October and November. Fig. 6is from 
an impression of one of these. 
Cupressus (Chamecyparis) Lawsoniana and C. (Chamecyparis) Nutkensis.— 
These also throw off ramules annually; but Ihave not yet been able to ascertain 
how long they remain on the tree before they are thrown off. 
Figs. 7, 8, and 9 are from shed ramules of C. Lawsoniana, and figs. 10 and 11 
of C. Nutkensis. 
Juniperus communis, suecica, hibernica, chinensis, thurifera, Oxycedrus, 
Sabina, and virginiana, all throw off ramules every year, which may be picked 
up in great numbers under old plants during September and October. So far 
as my observations have yet gone, they seem to indicate that the effete ramules, 
like those of the Arbor-vite, are thrown off at the end of the third year. The 
fallen ramules of the junipers are so very brittle that I have only succeeded in 
taking good impressions of those of J. virginiana and J. chinensis. Figs. 
12-14 are from fallen ramules of J. virginiana, illustrating the two kinds of 
foliage exhibited by that species; the spreading juniper form of leaf on the one 
hand, and the closely appressed and scale-like cypress-form on the other. 
Sequoia sempervirens* (Californian Red-wood). Here the ramules are annually 
cast off during October, November, and December. These are so very peculiar in 
shape, and so resistent of decay after their fall, that they are not easily over 
looked. One distinguishing peculiarity of this beautiful tree is, that the central 
leaves of each year’s growth are longer and larger than those produced early in 
* The position of the genus Sequoia is not very well determined. Sometimes it is placed among 
Abietinez, sometimes among Cupressinee. With Abietinez it agrees in the pendulous or inverted 
position of the “seeds.” PARLATORE, in DECANDOLLE'S “ Prodromus,” associates it with Taaxodium, 
Cryptomeria, &c., in his sub-tribe Taxodiex, 
