238 



rEACTICAL FORESTRY. 



Sequoia, we cannot but distmst them in other matters. But 

 such vagaries of authors are not confined to those of our times, 

 for even the revered Linneeus reversed the generic names of 

 the Firs and Spruces, ignoring the classification of those who 

 had lived long before his time. The continental botanists and 

 nurserymen, however, have in most instances retained the older 

 classifications, placing the Spruces under the generic name of 

 Picea, and the Firs under Abies, while the English and most of 

 our American authors have followed Linnaeus, although there 

 can be no question as to its inaccuracy. 



The North American Coniferae have been carefully elaborated 

 in the works of Drs. Gray, Chapman, Engelmann, and other 

 botanists, but our most comprehensive and best special treatise 

 on the conifera3, is " The Book of Evergreens," by Josiah Hoopes. 

 This is a work that I can confidentially recommend to those 

 who may desire a more scientific description and classification 

 of either the indigenous or foreign species than will be given in 

 the foUowmg pages. Owing to the confusion referred to in 

 regard to the classification of our coniferse, I may in some in- 

 stances depart from the alphabetical arrangement of the pre- 

 ceding pages, and place the different genera in the order of 

 the relationship instead. 



juxiPERUS, Linn. — Juniper, 



An immense genus of evergreen trees and shrubs, and the 

 species widely distributed, and in almost every degree of lati- 

 tude, although principally in the Northern Hemisphere. The 

 wood of all the species is fine-grained, bard and durable, the 

 heart wood usually reddish and fragi^ant. Flowers dioecious or 

 sometimes monoecious, the small, solitary catkins, axillary or 

 terminal, upon short lateral twigs. Fruit a scaly bracted drupe, 

 and in some species resembling a berry, more than a true cone, 

 usually emitting a strong resinous odor, and containing one to 

 three hard-shelled seeds. Leaves small, scale-like, persistent 

 and rigid. All readily propagated by seeds or cuttings of the 

 small branchlets, also by layers and grafting. 



Jnniperns Californica, Carr. — California Juniper. — Leaves in 

 clusters of three, short, thick, and mostly acute. Fruit oblong- 

 ovate, of six or rarely four scales, usually one-seeded, and of a 

 reddish color when ripe. A small shrub, or sometimes a tree, 

 twenty to thirty feet high, with rather stout branches. Cali- 

 fornia, in the Coast Ranges, from the Sacramento River south- 

 ward to San Diego. 



