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Trees (rarely shrubs). Branchlets terete or rhombic in cross section, in fan-shaped or pinnately flattened sprays. Leaves opposite in 4 ranks. Adult leaves usually appressed, lateral and facial pairs similar, closely overlapping, scalelike, free portion of long-shoot leaves to ca. 7 mm; abaxial glands present or absent, circular to linear. Pollen cones with 2--3 pairs of sporophylls, each sporophyll with 2--4 pollen sacs. Seed cones maturing and opening in 1--2 years, nearly globose, glaucous, 4--12 mm; scales persistent, 2--5(--6) pairs, valvate, peltate or basifixed, thick and woody, terminal pair often fused. Seeds 1--4 per cone scale, lenticular, equally 2-winged; cotyledons 2--3. x = 11.
Trees evergreen, monoecious; branchlets arranged in a plane, flattened. Leaves decussate, scalelike, usually dimorphic along branchlets: facial pairs closely appressed, ovate or rhombic-ovate; lateral pairs boat-shaped, overlapping margins of facial pairs. Pollen cones ovoid or oblong; microsporophylls 6-8, each with 2-4 pollen sacs. Seed cones terminal on branchlets, solitary, globose or oblong, dehiscent when mature in 1st year; cone scales 8-12, peltate, woody, each fertile scale bearing (1 or)2(-5) seeds; free bract apex a small mucro. Seeds with lateral, narrow wings. Cotyledons 2.
Female cones subglobose, woody, dehiscent, with 3–6 pairs of ovuliferous scales each bearing 2–5 ovules, the scales becoming peltate and polygonal, pointed or elevated in the middle; seeds winged; microsporophylls few; monoecious trees with small, appressed, scale-like, decussately opposite lvs, the lateral ones folded and upper and lower flat or rounded, often with a resin-gland; branchlets numerous from the axils of the lateral lvs, forming ± flattened sprays; 2n=22. 6, N. Temp.
