Important: Safety Warning
This page states that certain wild plants are safe to eat. Its identifications and edibility claims are more than a century old and in some cases simply wrong, and deadly look-alikes exist for many edible species. Never eat a wild plant on the strength of this text.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Order Cxlv
CONIFERÆ.
These bear the same relation in point of consequence to resinous trees, that Amentaceæ bear to those that are not resinous. They are well known as lofty timber, yielding valuable wood and abundance of resin. NATURAL ARRANGEMENT.
Among them is now numbered the loftiest tree in the world, a species of pine found by Mr. Douglas in California, which grows 220 feet high, with a circumference of 60 feet. Pitch, turpentine, Venice turpentine, are produced by various species. Gum Sandarach, by Thúja quadriválvis; a matter like olibanum, by Juniperus lýcia; a sort of liquid storax, by Altíngia excélsa. The Juniperuses in which the resin is " incompletely oxygenized," are more fragrant, and also stimulating in a greater degree; as the savin for example. The berries of many of these plants possess similar qualities. Their seeds are all oily; those of Pínus Pínea, Cémbra, and Lambertiána, and Salisbúria adiantifolia, are eatable as nuts. The fleshy fruit of the ivy, which is poisonous, is an exception to the general innoxious character of the order. Coniferæ are mostly inhabitants of the northern parts of the world, where they form immense forests, and supply with their dense persistent leaves the place occupied by the evergreen trees of warmer climates. A few are found in the southern hemisphere. 2012 Pínus W. 2013 A'bies Salisb. 2014 Lárix Salisb. 2015 Schubertia Mirb. 2017 Cupréssus W. 2018 Thúja W. 2113 Juníperus W. 2112 Araucária J. 2010 Bélis Salisb. 2011 A'gathis Salisb. 1970 Exocarpus Lab. 2016 Podocarpus L'her. 2114 Táxus W.