GYMNOGENOUS PLANTS. 329 
Lebanon (Plate IV.) are trees having an aspect full of grandeur, 
spreading their vast horizontal arms thirty or forty feet from the 
stem, which rises forty or fifty feet above the soil. Upon the back of 
Mount Atlas, in the North of Africa, and in the temperate countries 
of Asia, the Cedar forms immense forests of a most majestic and 
imposing aspect. There is indeed no nobler object than the Cedar. 
“The Lebanon,” say the Arabian poets, ‘‘ bears winter on his head, 
spring on his shoulders, and autumn in his bosom, while summer 
sleeps at his feet ;” and in confirmation of the truth of the sentiment 
a few venerable Cedars still remain; they form a beautiful grove 
on the line of route from Baalbec to the coast. They are large 
and massy, rearing their heads to an enormous height, and 
spreading their branches afar; but they have a strangely wild 
aspect, travellers say, as if wrestling with some invisible person 
bent on their destruction while life is still strong in them ; but they 
are gradually disappearing. In 1575 there were found twenty-four 
standing in a circle ; in 1630 Fermanil counted twenty-two; there 
are now seven standing near each other, and a few more almost in 
a line with them. 
‘* Standing in their strength erect, 
Defying the battled storm.”—Sovruey. 
The other plants of which we have spoken belong to a vast 
Section of the Pinacew, designated under the name of Adiétinee 
and Cupressine, and presenting a great number of essential 
Common characters. The trees of which we have now to speak, 
namely, the Thuja and the Juniper, differ in many respects from 
the tribe of the Abietines. The Thujas, or Arbor vitas, are 
mMonecious plants; their male flowers are composed of a filiform 
_Horal axis, upon which are inserted numerous stamens, which may 
be likened to nails with which old-fashioned doors are sometimes 
_ Studded, supporting under their heads foux, unilocular one-celled — 
anthers. The female flowers are disposed in catkins, each scale of 
os which bears two erect orthotropal ovules. These soon become fleshy _ 
eo and consolidated, but when at maturity, they dry up, and in doing so 
_ ‘Stach themselves and separate, thus setting the pollen grains free 
eS ” escape. Thujas are evergreen trees with flattened branches __ 
 ‘Tesulting from very small imbricated and compact leaves. In the ~ 
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