Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/486

cylindrical. Stamens sub-cylindrical, bilocular, with triangular, terminal, oblique scale. Female cones at first sessile, solitary, of a cylindrical form, of a pea-green colour, covered with a delicate, velvety, bluish bloom. As they advance in growth, they stand erect and solitary in a small peduncle on the upper side of the branches and become brown. They are oval, very obtuse, 2-5in. long, l-2½in. diam. In their early green stage, most deliciously fragrant. Scales very broad, transversely oblong, flat, fan-shaped, ferruginous, entire, smooth and thin at the edges and somewhat membranaceous. Seeds unequal, somewhat wedge-shaped, with a large, obovate-membranous, brown wing, expanding suddenly on the thinner side, immediately beyond the seed. The majority of male catkins and female flowers are on separate trees. But a considerable number of trees also produce both male and female flowers on the same individuals. The usual girth is from 24-30ft., at times 33-36ft., 4 or 5ft. above the ground. Height 160-180ft , or even 200ft. (Vol. III. P. 225, Pinetum Britannicum. Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London, 1884.)

Sir Joseph Hooker says (Natural History Review, 1862, p. 17). " It is evident that the distinctions between Cedrus Deodara, Cedrus Libani and Cedrus Atlantica are so trifling and so far within the proved limits of variation of conifera plants that it may reasonably be assumed that all originally sprang from one. It should be added that there are no other distinctions whatever between them of bark, wood, leaves, male cones, anthers or the structure of these, nor in the mode of germination or duration ; the girth they attain or their hardiness (the assumed distinctive characters between the Deodar and Lebanon Cedar that were formed on the form of the cones the falling away of their scales, the shape of the leaf in section, the wood, its odour and durability having all been satisfactorily disproved long ago. * * * *. Though the differences in the scales and seeds of Deodara and Libani are very marked, they vary much, many forms of each overlap, and further transitions between the most dissimilar may be established by intercalation of seeds and scales from C. Atlantica My own impression