Flora of Western Middle California 



GYMNOSPERM/E. 



Ovules borne naked upon the surface of a scale or bract, the ovules 

 and seeds therefore without pericarp. Cotyledons 8 to 15, sometimes 

 2. Trees or shrubs, ours all evergreen, with needle-like, scale-like 

 or linear leaves, mostly bearing cones or some with a berry-like fruit. 



I, TAXACE/E. Yew Family. 



Evergreen trees with linear leaves spreading in 2 ranks. Flowers 

 dioecious. Staminate flowers consisting of a cluster of stamens, the 

 filaments monadelphous in a column. Pistillate flower solitary, 

 terminating short axillary branchlets, consisting of a single ovule, 

 which in fruit becomes a seed with a bony coat set in a fleshy disk <>r 

 enclosed by a fleshy covering. Embryo surrounded by endosperm; 

 cotyledons 2. 



Branches alternate; leaves carinate on the upper surface; seed borne in a 

 berry-like cup 1. Taxi s. 



Branches mostly opposite or whoried ; leaves flat, the under surface with a 

 longitudinal channel or sulcus on either side of the midrib; fruit plum- 

 like, the seed enclosed in a fleshy covering 2. Tumion. 



1. TAXUS Tourn. 

 Ours a tree with a scaly bark. Flowers scaly-bracted. Stamens 8 

 to 10 in a cluster, the 5 to 9 anther cells formed under a shield-like 

 connective. Ovule seated upon a circular disk, which in fruit 

 becomes cup-shaped, fleshy and red, surrounding the bony seed, the 

 whole berry-like. 



1. T. brevifolia Nutt. Yew. Tree 18 to 30 ft. high ; leaves with 

 carinate midnerve, somewhat revolute, cuspidate, short petioled; 

 clusters of stamens 2 lines long; fruit about 3 lines long. 



Sierra Nevada; Mt. Shasta; and southward in the Coast Kanges 

 to southern Mendocino Co.; to be expected in northern Sonoma. 



2. TUMION Kaf. Torre ya. 

 Branches mostly in whorls or opposite, spreading or drooping. 

 Leaves nearly flat, decurrent, not carinate, the under surface with a 

 longitudinal channel or furrow on either side of the midrib. Stamens 



•2 



