257 



FINETUM DANICUM. 



CONIFEES COLLECTED AND OBSEEVED BY 

 Peofessoe GAEL HANSEN, Mynstersvei 2, Copenhagen, V. 



Notes sent to the Conifee Confeeence held at Chiswick, 



OCTOBEE, 1891. 



SYiJTOPSIS OF THE NATURAL ORDER CONIFERjE. 



CONIFEES. 



The Conifers (cone-bearers) are a most important family of the 

 vegetable kingdom. They form, together with the Gnetacese 

 and Cycadeas, the " Gymnosperms," or naked-seeded plants, as the 

 ovule is naked, in pairs, or several, on the face of the ovary, in- 

 verted, and consisting of one or two membranes open at the apex, 

 together with a nucleus ; or the ovules are also naked, and then 

 (as in the Taxaceffi) the foramen is at their apex, their outer skin 

 becoming finally hard. And then, in this case, the seed is usually 

 supported or surrounded by a succulent imperfect cup- shaped 

 pericarp. In other cases the fruit consists of a cone formed of 

 the scale-like ovaries having become enlarged and hardened, and 

 occasionally of the bracts also, which are sometimes obliterated, 

 and sometimes extend beyond the scales in the form of a lobed 

 appendage. Seed furnished with a hard crustaceous integument. 



The plants abound in resinous wood, with the ligneous tissue 

 marked with circular discs. 



SERIES A. 



Ovules erect during the period of flowering. 



Tribe L—CUPBESSINEyE. 



The scales of the cones are in two or more rows opposite each 

 other, or verticillate in three or four whorls ; the cones of some 



s 



