| + | Dacrydium (Greek-made name, referring to the tear-like exudations). Taxaceae. About 16 species of New Zeal., Austral., Malaya and Chile, being: trees or shrubs with closely imbricated scale-like Lvs. on old trees and linear or linear-subulate spreading Lvs. on young trees and lower branches, none apparently in the trade in this country but more or less grown in European arboreta; allied to Podocarpus, from which it differs in having dimorphic Lvs., peduncle of fr. dry or fleshy (fleshy and enlarged in Podocarpus), and the ovule becoming erect; and to Phyllocladus, which differs in having cladophylla and the true Lvs. reduced to minute scales. Dacrydium is dioecious or rarely monoecious, the fls. not in cone -like structures; male fls. solitary at tips of branchlets and with the uppermost Lvs., females nearly or quite terminal under the If.-like scales: seeds nut-like, ovoid, borne in a cup-like fleshy or thin aril.—These more or less spruce-like trees sometimes attain a height in their native regions of 75-100 ft. Some of the species may be expected to thrive in the southern areas. |