1. C. demérsum, L. Fruit smooth, marginless, beaked with a long persistent style, and with a short spine or tubercle at the base on each side.—Var. echinàtum, Gray, has the fruit mostly larger (3´´ long), rough-pimpled on the sides, the narrowly winged margin spiny-toothed.—Slow streams and ponds, across the continent. (Eu., etc.)
SUBCLASS II. GYMNOSPÉRMÆ.
Pistil represented by an open scale or leaf, or else entirely wanting; the ovules and seeds therefore naked (without a pericarp), and fertilized by the direct application of the pollen. Cotyledons often more than two.
Order 107. CONÍFERÆ. (Pine Family.)
Trees or shrubs, with resinous juice, mostly awl-shaped or needle-shaped entire leaves, and monœcious or rarely diœcious flowers in catkins or solitary, destitute of calyx or corolla. Ovules orthotropous or inverted. Embryo in the axis of the albumen, nearly its length. (Wood destitute of ducts, composed chiefly of a homogeneous large woody fibre which is marked with circular disks on two sides.)
Suborder I. Pinàceæ. Fertile flowers in scaly aments becoming cones or berry-like. Ovules 2 or more at the base of each scale. Mostly monœcious and evergreen.
Tribe I. ABIETINEÆ. (Pine Family proper.) Fertile flowers in catkins, consisting of numerous open spirally imbricated carpels in the form of scales, each scale in the axil of a thin persistent bract; in fruit forming a strobile or cone. Ovules 2, adherent to the base of each scale, inverted. Seeds winged. Cotyledons 3–16. Anthers spirally arranged upon the stamineal column, which is subtended by involucral scales. Buds scaly. Leaves scattered (or fascicled in n. 1 and 5), linear to needle-shaped.
[*] Cones maturing the second year, their scales becoming thickened and corky.
1. Pinus. Leaves 2–5 in a cluster, surrounded by a sheath of scarious bud-scales.
[*][*] Cones maturing the first year, their scales remaining thin.