io8 
Dicotyledons with Incomplete Flowers . 
Natural Order 
CONIFERiE. Tab. 87. 
Diagnosis. —Trees or shrubs, usually resinous, with scattered distichous 
or fascicled acicular or subulate leaves. Flowers unisexual. Ovules desti¬ 
tute of a closed carpellary covering, fertilised by direct contact of the pollen. 
Distribution. —A large Natural Order represented in every quarter of the Globe, though very 
rare in Tropical Africa, where, however, one of the most exceptional forms of the Order is found. 
Seyeral genera, especially of the Southern Hemisphere, are local or peculiar to Southern latitudes, 
while the larger genera, Pine, Spruce, Silver Fir, Juniper and Cypress, are chiefly confined to the 
Northern Hemisphere in both the New and Old World. A few peculiar types are restricted to 
Eastern Asia and Japan. Some North American species, as Wellingtonia (i Sequoia giganted) 
and Douglas Fir (Alies Douglasii ), attain upwards of 300 feet in height. 
Number of British Genera, 3; Species, 3. 
# Leaves deciduous in Larch ( Larix ), persistent in most of the genera of the Order : singly scattered and 
distichous as in Yew {Taxus) ; in pairs as in Scotch Fir ( Pinus sylvestris); in 3’s as in Pitch Pine (P. rigidd); in 
5’s as in Weymouth Pine (P. Strobus); whorled in Umbrella Pine {Sciadopitys); in many-leaved fascicles in Larch 
and Cedar {Cedrus); acicular as in Pines, or subulate as in Junipers ( Juniperus ), or scale-like and appressed as in 
Cypress {Cupressus), or broadly fan-shaped as in Maiden-hair Tree ( Salisburia ). 
Stamens with 2-celled subsessile anthers and a broad projecting connective, arranged in axillary spikes in Scotch 
Fir; with 3 ° r 4 cells on the lower margin of peltate scales arranged in short terminal spikes or heads in Cypress 
and Arbor-vita^ {Thuja); capitate, peltate, and usually 6-celled in Yew. 
