ovular scales outgrow the bracts, and in the mature cone are much larger than and almost entirely coalesced with them.
The cones, which are borne on short stout stalks, clothed with a few membranous bracts, either remain terminal and erect or are pushed aside by the growth of a lateral branch. They take two years to ripen, and remain persistent on the tree for some months after the dehiscence of the seeds. Ripe cones, about 3 inches long by 1½ inch in diameter, oblong-ovoid, obtuse at the apex, composed of woody scales, which result from the coalescence of the ovular scales and bracts of the flower. The scales are fan-shaped, about ¾ inch wide; upper margin rounded and reflexed; outer surface convex, marked by a transverse rugged irregular ridge; inner surface concave, with slight depressions for the seeds. Seeds, five to nine on each scale, reversed, oval, compressed, dark brown, surrounded by a narrow membranous reddish-brown wing, notched at the base and marked at the apex by the white hilum; seed with wing, about ¾ inch long by ¼ inch wide. The seedling has a long slender tap root, and a terete green glabrous caulicle about an inch in length, which bears two cotyledons. These are sessile, linear, tapering to an obtuse apex, a little more than ½ inch long, dark green above, paler below with indistinct lines of stomata. Primary leaves like the cotyledons, but longer.
Sciadopitys is a monotypic genus, only one species being known, which is a native of Japan.
SCIADOPITYS VERTICILLATA, Umbrella Pine[1]
- Sciadopitys verticillata, Siebold et Zuccarini, loc. cit. 1844; Kent, Veitch's Man. Coniferæ, 287 (1900); Shirasawa, Icon. Ess. Forest. Japon, text 22, t. 8, ff. 15-36 (1900); Thiselton-Dyer, Bot. Mag. t. 8050 (1905); Mayr, Fremdländ. Wald- u. Parkbäume, 407 (1906).
- Taxus verticillata, Thunberg, Fl. Jap. 276 (1784).
The species has been described above. The tree is known in Japan as Koyamaki, or pine of Mt. Koya, one of the localities where it is found growing wild. Thomas Lobb sent a living plant in 1853 from the Botanic Garden at Buitenzorg in Java to Veitch's nursery at Exeter; but it soon died. It was afterwards introduced by seeds brought from Japan by J. Gould Veitch in 1861, some being also sent about the same time by Fortune to Standish at Ascot.
A variety in which the leaves are striped with yellow was introduced by Fortune; but this seems to be now unknown in cultivation.
Plants only 3 feet high produced cones in 1876 in the nursery of Messrs. Thibaut and Keteleer at Sceaux.[2] The tree appears to have first borne fruit in Scotland[3] at Ardkinglas, in 1878, and in England[4] at Kew and Coombe Wood, in 1884. Proliferous cones,[5] which bear cladodes at their apex, are of frequent occurrence in Japan, and have also been borne by trees cultivated in Europe. In
