CONIFERS, 
usually fewer at a greater height on the primary axis. The secondary axes usually 
begin at once with decussate pairs, which, in bilateral shoots, are alternately larger 
and smaller (as in Callitris and Libocedrus) ; in Juniper us and Frenela the whorls 
on the secondary axes also consist of from three to five leaves, and are alternate; the 
pairs of leaves of Dammara stand at an acute angle to one another. The foliage- 
leaves of most Conifers are very persistent, and may live for several years, their leaf- 
cushions keeping pace in growth for a long time with the increase in size of the axis ; 
in Larix and Salisburia the leaves alone are deciduous in autumn, in Taxodium 
distichum the axes that bear them are also deciduous. 
The Flowers of Coniferse are always diclinous ; either monoecious, as in the 
Abietineae and Thuja, or dioecious, as in Taxus, Salisburia, and Juniperus communis ; 
the male are usually much more numerous than the female flowers. They are never 
terminal on the primary stem, differing in this respect from those of Cycadeae ; even 
the larger woody branches bear only rarely, as in Abies excelsa, terminal (in this 
case only female) flowers. Usually the flowers are produced at the apex of small 
foliage-shoots of the last order, or in the leaf-axils of the stronger foliage-shoots. 
In Thuja, for instance, male and female flowers appear at the end of small short 
green shoots of the bilateral system of branches ; in Taxus and Juniperus, on the 
other hand, in the axils of foliage-leaves of larger shoots; in Abies pectinata they are 
found on the under side of shoots of a higher order at the summit of older trees, 
both kinds in the axils of foliage-leaves, the female flowers singly, the male in 
larger numbers. The flowers of Pinus sylvestris and allied species appear in the 
place of the undeveloped branches (tufts of leaves) which stand in the axils of the 
scales of growing woody shoots, the male flowers usually in groups forming an 
inflorescence the primary axis of which is the mother-shoot, the female flowers 
generally more scattered. In Salisburia the flowers appear exclusively on the 
short lateral branches which annually form new rosettes of leaves, and they are 
situated in the axils of the foliage-leaves or of the inner bud scales (Fig. 347, 
A and B). 
The part of the floral axis immediately beneath the organs of reproduction is 
densely covered with scales or foliage-leaves in the female plant of Taxus, Juniperus, 
&c. (Figs. 348, 349) ; it is developed as a naked stalk in the Abietineae, Salis- 
buria, the male plant of Taxus, Podocarpus, &c. (Fig. 347 A, B). The flowers 
of Coniferae resemble those of Cycadeae in the peculiarity that the axis elongates 
even at the part that produces the organs of reproduction; if these are numerous, the 
whole flower presents the appearance of a long cone, resembling externally a catkin; 
and this term is indeed given to it in the superficial language of many systematists. 
In Angiosperms the flowering shoot usually undergoes a very peculiar development 
at its summit, the portion of the axis which bears the flower (the receptacle) 
remaining very short and broad, and the floral leaves and organs of reproduction 
being formed in positions which diff"er greatly from those of the foliage-leaves ; 
in Coniferae the distinction between a floral and a foliage-shoot is much less, and 
this is especially conspicuous in the arrangement of the leaves; if those of the 
foliage-branches are arranged spirally, so also are usually those of the flowers, 
as, e.g., in the Abietineae; if, on the contrary, as in the Cupressineae, they occur 
in alternating whorls, the staminal and carpellary leaves are arranged in the same 
