CHAP. CXIIT.

CONl'FERiE.

2103

We have dwelt at greater length on the trees of New Zealand, than we should otherwise have donewith half-hardy species ; because, from the climate, and the elevation at which some of them arefound, we are inclined to hope that they mayprove half-hardy in the climate of London, and nearlv,if not quite, hardy in the warmest parts of Devonshire. The singularity of the appearance of phy’l-locladus, and its obvious alliance to salisburia, would render it a most desirable introduction, eitherfor the green-house or the conservative wall, and possibly it may prove as hardy as salisburia.

CHAP. CXIII.

OF THE HARDY AND HALF-HARDY LIGNEOUS PLANTS OF THE ORDERCONCFERiE, OR PINA'CEJE.

Identification. Lindl. Nat. Syst. of Bot., p. S13.; Richard M^m.Conif., in part.

Synonymes. Conifera; Rich. Mem. Conif. The Conifer®, till lately, included the order Taxiceso,already given p. 2065., which has been separated from it by Dr. Lindley. Conice® Lindl. Key, 232.Jffini/ies. The Taxaceze have been separated from this order on the one hand, while, on the other,the Cycad&ceae are considered as approaching very near it.

General Characters of the Order. All ligneous. Flowers unisexual; thoseof the two sexes in distinct catkins, that are situated upon one plant in mostof the species, and upon two plants in the rest. — Male. Catkin longer thanbroad. Each flower a scale or body, bearing pollen contained within either2 cells formed within the scale or body, or 3 or more 1-celled cases; inAraucaria Juss., in 2-celled cases, exterior to, but united with, the scale orbody : a part of the scale or body is free, above the cells or cases containingthe pollen. — Female. Catkin more or less conical, cylindrical, or round, infigure; composed of many, several, or few flowers, each, in most species, sub-tended by a bractea. The catkin, in the state of fruit, is rendered a strobile ofmuch the same figure. Each flower is constituted of 1—3 ovules, borne froman ovary that resembles a scale, and is in some instances connate with thebractea that subtends it. Ovules regarded as receiving impregnation fromdirect contact of the pollen with the foramen of the ovule. Bracteas imbri-cated. Carpels, which are the ovaries in an enlarged and ripened state, im-bricated. Seed having in many species a membranous wing. Embryo includedwithin a fleshy oily albumen, and having from 2 to many opposite cotyledons,and the radicle being next the tip of the seed, and having an organic connexionwith the albumen. Brown has noticed a very general tendency in somespecies of Pinus and A'bies to produce several embryos in a seed.— Trees,almost all evergreen, the wood abounding in resin. Leaves needle-shaped,scale-like, or lanceolate; in some species disposed in groups, with a mem-branous sheath about the base of the group, at least in most of these; insome in rows, in some oppositely in pairs, decussate in direction; imbricatelyin several. (Lindl. Nat. Syst. of Bot.; T. Nees ah Esenbech Gen, PI. FI.Germ. Illustr.; Richard Mem. sur les Coniferes ; Wats. Dendr. Brit.; andobservation.)

The Conifer® were first studied scientifically by Tournefort. In his In-stitutiones, See., published in 1717-19, this botanist established the followingnine genera; viz., A'bies, Pinus, iarix, Thuja, Cupressus, Cedrus, Juniperus,Taxus, and E'phedra. Linnaeus, in his Genera Plantarum, published in 1737,only admitted seven of Tournefort’s genera, uniting Jurix to A'bies, andCedrus to Juniperus. Adanson, in 1763, in his Families des Plantes, adoptedTournefort’s genera, with the exception of Cedrus, which, with Linnaeus, heunited to Juniperus ; and he added to the Conifer® the genera CasuarinaBumph., and Equisetum L. A. L. De Jussieu, in 1789, in his Genera Planta-rum, formed the family of Conifer® of the seven genera adopted by Linnaeus,placing there the Casuarina of Rumphius, and adding the genus Araucaria.Lamarck ( Encyc. Meth., ii. p. 32., published in 1790), under the article Co-nifer®, adopted the genera of Linn®us and Jussieu, with the exception ofAraucaria, which he describes, in another part of his work, under the name ofDombeya. Gsertncr, in 1791 (De Fruct. et San. Plant.), united in one