Podocarp us (podokarpus)

[NL. (L'Hé ritier, 1817), so called in allusion to the thick fleshy stalk which supports the fruit (not so in other conifers); twin pistillate flowers surrounded by a few scales, bearing a somewhat stalked and projecting blade, which envelops the single adnate and inverted ovule. In fruit this blade usually be comes fleshy, forming a pulpy covering to the hard shell like seed, which contains a thin embryo with two seed leaves only, in fleshy albumen. The staminate flowers are solitary or in clusters of from two to five, or in long catkins, the stamens forming a long dense column covered with se ile two-celled anthers in spiral rows. There are from 40 to 60 species, forming much the largest coniferous genus except Pinus. They are chiefly natives of the southern hemisphere beyond the tropics, and also frequent in montane and eastern tropical Asia. They are evergreen trees, with much diversity in foliage: the leaves are either scattered, opposite, two-ranked, or crowded; scale-like, linear, or broad; and veinle or with many fine parallel veins. The fruit is a globular or ovoid drupe or nut, 14 inches or le in diameter, in some species edible, as P. and in a, the plum-fir of Chili, with clusters of cherry-like fruits, and P. spinulosa, the native plum or damson of New South Wales, also called Mawarra pine and white pine. Several other species are known as fir or pine among the colonists of New Zealand, Australia, and Cape Colony. Compare fir and pinel, and for individual species see kahikatea, matai, and miro. Many species are among the most important timber-trees of the southern hemisphere, as (besides the preceding) P. Totara, the mahogany-pine; P. cupre ina, the kaw-tabu a, one of the chief timber-trees of Java; and the various yellow-woods of Cape Colony. ( See yellow - wood.) Others are a source of valuable gums, as P. polystachya, the wax-dammar of Singapore. Some are but bushes, others reach a great height, as P. amara of Java (200 feet), and the yacca-tree of the West Indies (100 feet). Some botanists use the name of the section Nageia for the whole genus. podocephalous (pod-ō-sef'a-lus), a. [