The pinetum : being a synopsis of all the coniferous plants at present known, with descriptions, history and synonyms, and a comprehensive systematic index / by George Gordon.

  • George Gordon
Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The pinetum : being a synopsis of all the coniferous plants at present known, with descriptions, history and synonyms, and a comprehensive systematic index / by George Gordon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and composed of loosely-placed persistent scales. In the Genus PsEUDu-LAllix (the Chinese Larch) the leaves are long, linear, soft, deciduous, and disposed in tufts, or bundles on the adult branchlets, and with the cones rather large, pendulous, and composed of very deciduous and divergent scales. In the Genus Ceduus (the Cedars) the leaves are in tufts on the adult ]xirts, persistent and evergi-een; with the cones erect on the upper surface of the larger branches, and the sciiles more or less deciduous after the .seeds are ripe. From the time Abie- tinca) Profe.ssor Link has, in a veiy able article on the Genus Pinus, separated the Genera, compx'ising Lammara, Cunning- hamia, and Araucaria, into a New family, under the name of Dammaiiacea:, not only on account of the breadth and expan- sion of their loaves, but from their containing spiral vessels sufficiently large to be easily perceptible in the leaves, pro- duced on the older wood,* and from the inverted position of tlie female blo.ssoms. In the Cupressine,® all the branches are scattered along the main stem, the lateral ones being densely furnished with slen- der branchlets clothed with scale-like leaves, mostly imbricated in four rows on the adult plants. In the JUNIPERINEAJ the fruit is a kind of berry (Galbulus), composed of a fleshy or fibrous juicy substance, covered Avitli a glo.ssy skin, and furnished externally with minute scales. The Taxace^e, or Yew family, although not properly coni- ferous plants, as tliey do not bear cones, and have continuous inarticulate branche.s, the wood of which have ligneous tissue, marked with circular disks, arc still classed with conifene in all popular enumerations, being considered as of the same character and general liabit of growth. * Tlie S))iral vessels are very small, and only perceptible in the young shoots of Pinus and Abies.