POPULAR FLORA. 
201 
89. PINE FAMILY. Order CONIFERS. 
The only familiar family of Gymnospermous plants (218, 
250), consisting of trees or shrubs, with resinous juice, mostly 
awl-shaped or needle-shaped leaves, and monoecious or dioecious 
flowers of a very simple sort, and collected in catkins, except in 
Yew. In that the fertile flower is single at the end of the 
branch. No calyx nor corolla, and no proper pistil. Ovules 
and seeds naked. Sterile flowers of a few stamens or anthers, 
fixed to a scale. Cotyledons often more than one pair, some¬ 
times as many as 9 or 12, in a whorl. — For illustrations, see 
Fig. 49, 50, 134, 196, 197, 224 to 226, and 498, 499. —This 
family comprises some of our most important timber-trees, and 
the principal evergreen forest-trees of Northern climates. It 
consists of three well-marked subfamilies : — 
I. PINE Subfamily. Fertile flowers many in a catkin, which in fruit becomes a strobile or cone 
(250); the scales of which are open pistils (each in the axil of a bract), with a pair of ovules or seeds 
borne on the base of each. Seeds scaling off with a wing. Cones ovate or oblong. Leaf-buds scaly. 
Flowers monoecious. 
Leaves 2 to 5 in a cluster, from the axil of a thin scale, evergreen, needle-shaped. Cone 
with thick or sometimes thin scales, ( Pinus) Pine. 
Leaves many in a cluster (Fig. 134) on side spurs, and also scattered along the shoots of 
the season, needle-shaped, falling in autumn. Cone with thin scales, ( Larix ) Larch. 
Leaves all scattered along the shoots, evergreen, linear or needle-shaped. Cone with t hi n 
scales, (Abies) Fir. 
II. CYPRESS Subfamily. Fertile flowers few, in a rounded catkin, formed of scales which are 
generally thickened at the top, and without any bracts, bearing one or more ovules at the bottom. 
Leaves scale-like or awl-shaped. Leaf-buds without any scales. 
Flowers monoecious. Cone dry, opening at maturity. 
Leaves deciduous and delicate, linear, 2-ranked. Cone round and woody, each shield¬ 
shaped scale 2-seeded, ( Taxodium) Bald-Cypress. 
Leaves evergreen, small, scale-like and awl-shaped (of two shapes). 
Cone woody and round; the scales shield-shaped, ( Cupressus) Cypress.* 
Cone of a few oblong and nearly flat loose scales (Fig. 498), ( Thuja) Arbor-vit^e.* 
Flowers dioecious, or sometimes monoecious. Fruit composed of a few closed scales, 
which become pulpy and form a sort of false berry, ( Juniperus) Juniper. 
III. YEW Subfamily. Buds scaly: leaves linear. Fertile flower single at the end of a branch, 
ripening into a nut-like seed. This is enclosed in an open and at length pulpy, berry-like red cup, in 
our only genus, viz. ( Taxus) Yew. 
* Our only Cupressus is C. thyoides, the White Cedar, rather common South. The Arbor-vitje, 
Thuja occidentalism so common North, and cultivated for evergreen hedges, is also called White Cedar. 
Our Red Cedar is a Juniper. 
498 499 
498. Fertile flowers, or young cone, 
of Arbor-Vitse, enlarged. 499. Inside 
view of one of the scales and its pair 
of naked ovules, more magnified. 
