Page:TheTreesOfGreatBritainAndIreland vol04B.djvu/157

Evergreen trees belonging to the tribe Abietineæ of the order Coniferæ. Branches irregularly whorled. Branchlets of one kind; pulvini slightly projecting, persistent, and showing, when the leaves have fallen, an oval scar at their apex. Buds spindle- shaped, acute at the apex, brownish, shining, glabrous; one terminal larger, and one to four lateral and smaller in the axils of the uppermost leaves; scales numerous, imbricated, rounded and entire at the upper margin, increasing in size from below upwards ; some of the scales persistent for three or four years at the base of the branchlets, ultimately falling and leaving ring-like scars. Leaves arising in spiral order ; but on lateral branches, thrown by a twist of their bases into two spreading ranks ; persistent for four to eight years; linear, flat, narrowed at the base; upper surface green and longitudinally furrowed; lower surface with a prominent midrib and two stomatic bands; fibro-vascular bundle single, resin-canals two on the under surface next the epidermis.

Flowers, arising from buds formed in the previous summer, erect, solitary, surrounded at the base by involucral scales. Male flowers axillary, scattered along the branchlets, cylindrical ; pedicel short at first, ultimately elongated ; composed of numerous spirally arranged short-stalked globose anthers, opening obliquely: con- nective surmounted by a short spur; pollen-grains globose, without air-sacs. Pis- tillate flowers, terminal or in the axils of the uppermost leaves, composed of numerous spirally imbricated rounded scales, much shorter than the acutely three-lobed bracts ; ovules two on each scale, inverted. Fruit, a woody pendulous cone, ripening in the first season, ovoid-oblong, acute at the apex, rounded and narrowed at the base; peduncle short and stout; scales persistent on the axis after the fall of the seeds, small and sterile towards the base and apex of the cone, rounded, concave, rigid ; bracts conspicuous, exserted, oblong, three-lobed at the apex, the middle lobe awn- like and longer than the two lateral lobes. Seeds, two in shallow depressions, which occupy about half the surface of the scale, triangular, without resin-vesicles, winged. Cotyledons, six to twelve, linear ; with a prominent midrib and stomatiferous on the upper surface.