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Manual of the New Zealand Flora.

[Introduction to Order LXXVIII. ConiferÆ.]

Resinous trees or shrubs, almost always evergreen. Leaves opposite or whorled or alternate, solitary or fascicled within membranous sheaths, rigid, subulate or linear or scale-like, rarely broad and flat. Flowers monœcious or diœcious; males usually solitary, catkin-like, deciduous; females often cone-like. Perianth always wanting in both sexes. Male flowers reduced to the stamens only, which are usually numerous; filaments connate into an oblong or cylindrical central axis (staminal column); anthers placed around the axis, stipitate or sessile; cells 2 or more, either adnate to the back of the connective, or pendulous from its scale-like or peltate summit. Female flowers of one or more erect or reversed naked ovules, without ovary style or stigma, sessile on a scale (open car-pellary leaf or carpidium) which is free or adnate to a bract; scales rarely Solitary, usually several or many, in the latter case forming a cone or head. Fruit composed of the enlarged hardened or succulent scales or bracts, between which the seeds are hidden; or the mature seed may be exserted beyond the unchanged or fleshy scales or bracts. Seeds winged or wingless; testa thick or thin, membranous or crustaceous or fleshy; albumen copious, fleshy or farinaceous; embryo straight, axile, cotyledons 2 or more, radicle terete.

A large and important order, almost worldwide in its distribution, but most abundant in the temperate part of the Northern Hemisphere; rare in the tropies, except on high mountains; fairly well represented in the south temperate zone, Genera 33; species about 350. Many of the species yield valuable timber. Pines, firs, larches, cedars, cypresses in the Northern Hemisphere; the kauri, totara, rimu, Huon pine, &c, in the Southern, are well-known timber-trees, of great economic and commercial value. The mammoth tree of California {Sequoia gigantea) is probably the largest known tree. One has been measured 400 ft. high, with a trunk 116 ft. in circumference. The resinous products of the order are also of great importance. The most valuable are tar, turpentine, pitch, and kauri-gum. The 5 genera found in New Zealand are all widely distributed in the Southern Hemisphere, and one of them (Podocarpus) advances as far north as China and Japan.

A. Female flowers cone-like. Seeds concealed by the overlapping scales of the cone.
Leaves large, flat, oblong. Cones large, 2–3 in. diam.; scales and seeds many 1. Agathis.
Leaves small, scale-like. Cones small; scales 4–6; seeds 2–4 2. Libocedrus.
B, Female flowers not cone-like. Seed nut-like, exserted beyond the unchanged or enlarged and fleshy scales.
Leaves small, linear and flat or scale-like. Peduncle of fruit, together with the bracts, usually fleshy and en- larged. Ovule reversed 3. Podocarpu:page 645
Leaves usually dimorphic, of mature trees small and scalelike. Peduncle of fruit dry or fleshy. Ovule at first reversed but ultimately erect. Seed seated in a membranous or fleshy aril 4. Dacrydium.
Branchlets expanded into broad and flat coriaceous leaflike cladodes. True leaves reduced to minute scales. Ovule erect 5. Phyllocladus.