2106

ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM.

PART III.

Pollen of each flower borne in 5 cases, attached to the scale at its innerface. — Female. Catkins 2 —3 together, near the base of the spike of cat-kins of male flowers, each consisting of a small number of flowers. Ovules2 to an ovary. Strobile globose. Scales peltate, angled. Seed angled inoutline, and having angular projections on the surface; its integument verythick. Cotyledons 6—7. — Leaves linear, disposed in 2 ranks. Annual.

* * Sexes dioecious, or rarely monoecious.

J'uni'perus L. Male. Catkins axillary or terminal. Pollen of each flowerin 3—6 cases, attached to the basal edge of the scale, and prominent fromit.—Female. Catkin axillary, resembling a bud; consisting of 1—3 fleshyovaries ; bracteated at the base. Ovules l to an ovary. The ovariescoalesce, and become a fleshy juicy strobile, resembling a berry. Seeds1—3, each obscurely 3-cornered, and having 5 gland-bearing pits towardsthe base.—Leaves opoosite or ternate, narrow, rigid, and not rarely minuteand scale-shaped.

Sect. I. ^bie'tina:.

The Jbietinm, or the pine and fir tribe (arbres verts, Fr.; nadelholz, Ger.)are timber trees, as important in the construction of houses, and in civilarchitecture generally, as the oak is in the construction of ships, and in allkinds of naval architecture. The trees of this section of the Coniferae are sodifferent in their external appearance, not only from the trees of all otherorders, but even from the section Cupressinae, that they might well form anorder of themselves. The ylbietins are almost all trees of lofty stature, pyra-midal in form, and regularly furnished with verticillate frond-like branches,from the base to the summit of the trunk. These branches, unlike thoseof every other kind of tree, die off 1 as the tree grows old, without ever attaininga timber-like size; so that, in a physiological point of view, they may be con-sidered as rather like immense leaves than branches; and this circumstance,as well as others, seems to connect the pines and firs with the palms. Almostall the species are evergreen, and have linear needle-like leaves ; whence theGerman names of nadelholz and tangelholz. The number of ylbietinmdescribed by Linnaeus amounted to no more than 12 species. Smith, in 1819,in Rees’s Cyclopcedia, described 35 species; and in Lambert’s Genus Pinus,the last volume of which was published in 1837, 66 species are described.Besides these, some others have been introduced, of which little is yetknown; so that the number in British collections is considered to amount toupwards of 70 species, exclusive of varieties. They are all natives of tempe-rate regions, and chiefly of the northern hemisphere. On the poorest descrip-tion of dry soil, a greater bulk of valuable timber will be produced in any giventime by a crop of dbietinm adapted to it, than by a crop of any other naturalorder of trees whatever. According to Delamarre, the proportion between thetimber produced by the common pines, and the common broad-leaved treesof Europe, in a poor dry soil, in any given time, is as 10 to 1.

Description. In regard to general form, the ^bietinae, when full grown,and beginning to decay, are partly trees with spiry tops, and partly round orflat-headed trees. The genera yfbies, Pfcea, and Larix form conical trees, ofthe utmost regularity of figure, in every stage of their growth ; the differentspecies of Pinus and Cedrus, on the other hand, form regular cones when theyare young, and until they attain a certain age; but their heads become round orflattened as they grow old; the branches near the bottom of the trunk drop off,and those near the summit increase in thickness, and in lateral extension ; andhence the grandeur of the heads of these trees, when favourably situated andof great age. The genus Cedrus is remarkable for the horizontal direction