taxus TAXACE.E 781 



lines long, tipped with an awn 5-6 lines long, sometimes with 2 very short 

 lateral awns : flowering glumes lanceolate, smooth at the base, scabrous 

 above, bifid, bearing a divergent awn l>£-2 inches long. Bars of Snake 

 river at Wawawai, Washington. 



S. Brodiei Piper 1. c. Stems erect, 1^-2 feet high: leaves stiff, 

 smooth on both sidesj involute, 5-7 inches long: spike pale green, long- 

 exserted, erect, 2%-Z% inches long: empty glumes subulate, entire, 4 

 lines long, bearing an awn 6 lines long: flowering glumes lanceolate, dense- 

 ly appressed-pubescent, 6 lines long, rarely with 2 short lateral awns. 

 Bishop's Bar, Snake river, Washington. 



Class 2, GYMNOSPERM^. 



Monoecious or dioecious trees or shrubs, mostly evergreen, 

 with usually rigid needle-like, subulate, or scale-like leaves. 

 Ovules naked upon a scale, bract or disk, or within a more or 

 less open perianth. 



SYNOPTICAL KEY. 



110 Taxacese Dioecious evergreens: flowers solitary and axillary : ovule 

 solitary, in fruit a bony seed within a fleshy envelope or cup-shaped 

 disk. 



111 Pinaceae Mostly monoecious and evergreen trees or shrubs : staminate 

 flowers in aments : pistillate flowers in scaly aments becoming cones or 

 berry-like, ovules 2 or more at the base of each scale. 



Order 110 TAXACE^E Lindl. Xat. Syst. ed. 2, 316. 



Sparingly resinous trees or shrubs with scattered, in ours ever- 

 green, linear leaves spreading in 2 ranks and dioecious axillary 

 and solitary flowers achlamydeous and naked or surrounded 

 by the imbricated and usually decussate bud-scales. Staminate 

 flowers with the filaments monadelphous in a column, each fila- 

 ment surmounted by several more or less united pendent an- 

 ther-cells, dehiscing longitudinally on the lower side, Pollen 

 globose. Pistillate flowers of a solitary orthotropous ovule 

 which in fruit becomes a bony-coated seed raised upon or more 

 or less surrounded by or consolidated with a fleshy disk, cup or 

 other coating. Embryo axile, in fleshy or farinaceous albumen. 

 Cotyledons only 2, semiterete. 



1 TAXUS L. Sp. 1040. 



Trees or shrubs with evergreen spirally arranged short-pointed 

 linear flat mucronate leaves, spreading so as to appear 2-ranked, 

 and axillary and solitary sessile or subsessile very small aments. 

 Staminate aments consisting of a few scaly bracts and 5-8 

 stamens, their filaments united to the middle: anthers 4-6-celled. 

 Ovules solitary, axillary, erect, subtended by a fleshy annular 

 disk, which is bracted at the base. Fruit consisting of the fleshy 

 disk which becomes cup-shaped, red and nearly encloses the bony 

 seed. 



T. brevifolia Nutt. Sylva iii, 86 t. 108. A tree 20-90 feet high, by 



