Flowers appearing in January at the end of short lateral branchlets of the previous year; staminate, ¼ inch long; pistillate, with ovate, acute, greenish-yellow scales, subtended at the base by two to six pairs of slightly altered leaves, which persist yellowish, sharp-pointed and membranous at the base of the fruit.
Cones about an inch long, pendulous, reddish-brown, on short branchlets with ordinary leaves. Scales six; lower pair short with a reflexed process; middle pair long, lanceolate, gradually narrowing to a rounded apex, below which is a minute deltoid spreading or reflexed process, and concave on the inner surface at the base, with depressions for the seeds; upper pair connate into a thick, woody, median partition, slightly longer than the fertile scales, crowned by three minute spines. Seeds four, two collateral on each of the middle scales; body, ⅓ to ½ inch, lanceolate, pale brown, containing liquid resin, marked with a white hilum on each surface at the base; wings two lateral, one short and narrow, the other oblique, produced above the seed, nearly as long as the scale, rounded at the narrow apex, and about one-third as broad as long in the middle widest part. Seedling.—Seedlings sown at Colesborne in spring were about 3 inches high in August, and had a slender tap-root, about 5 inches long. Caulicle, 1¼ inch long, terete, brownish, glabrous. Cotyledons, two, 1⅝ inch long, linear, nearly uniform in width, rounded at the apex, green beneath, marked above with numerous inconspicuous stomatic lines. Primary leaves variable in number, first pair opposite, succeeded by three or four whorls in sets of four each, or only one or two whorls are produced; linear, ¾ inch long, tapering to an acuminate apex, glaucous on both surfaces with indistinct stomatic lines. Above the primary leaves the stem gives off branches, and produces scale-like small leaves, arranged in four ranks, and intermediate in character between the primary leaves and the adult foliage. (A.H.)
Distribution
Libocedrus decurrens was discovered by Fremont in 1846 on the upper waters of the Sacramento river. It was introduced in 1853 by Jeffrey, who collected for the Oregon Botanical Association of Edinburgh; and his specimens were named by Murray Zhuya Craigana in honour of Sir W. Gibson Craig, one of the members of the association. Carriére confused the tree with Thuya gigantea; and for some time there was great confusion in the nomenclature of the two species. Libocedrus decurrens is the name now universally adopted.
According to Sargent, the distribution extends from the north fork of the Santiam river in Oregon, lat. 44° 50', southward along the western slopes of the Cascade Mountains, and through the Sierra Nevada in California, occasionally crossing the range into Western Nevada; also along the Californian coast ranges from Mendocino county to the San Bernardino, San Jacinto, and Cuyamaca Mountains, reaching its most southerly point on Mount San Pedro Martin, half-way down the peninsula of Lower California. Sargent states that it is rather rare in Oregon, ascending to 5000 feet, and in the Californian coast ranges, where it rises to 5000 to 7000 feet; being most abundant and of largest size in the sierras of Central California at 3000 to 5000 feet, thriving best on warm, dry hillsides, plateaux, and
