CRYPTOMERIA
- Cryptomeria, D. Don, Trans. Linn. Soc. xviii. 166 (1839); Bentham et Hooker, Gen. Pl. iii. 428 (1880); Masters, Jour. Linn. Soc. (Bot.) xxx. 23 (1893).
A genus with one very variable living species, in Eastern Asia, belonging to the tribe Taxodineæ of the order Coniferæ.
A tree with evergreen leaves spirally arranged and decurrent on the shoots, which are only of one kind. Flowers monœcious. Male flowers: spike-like, sessile in the axils of the uppermost leaves of the branchlets, composed of numerous imbricated stamens, which have a pointed connective, and 3 to 5 pollen sacs. Female flowers: globular cones solitary and sessile on the tips of branchlets near to those on which the staminate flowers occur, composed of numerous bracts with free recurved pointed ends spirally imbricated in a continuous series with the leaves. Ovular scales, each bearing 3 to 5 ovules, united with the bracts for three-fourths of their length and dilated into roundish crenately-lobed extremities. Fruit: a globular brownish cone, ripening in the first year, but persisting on the tree after the escape of the seeds by the gaping apart of the scales till the next year or longer; scales about 20 to 30 in number, peltate, stalked with a disc dilated externally, which shows on its outer surface the recurved point of the bract (incorporated with the scale in its greater part), and on its upper margin 3 to 5 sharp-pointed rigid processes. The stalk-like portion of the scale bears on its inner side 2 to 5 seeds, which are ovate-oblong, somewhat triquetrous in section, and narrowly winged, with a mucro near the apex.
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