Trees deciduous; trunk monopodial, straight, terete; branches irregularly whorled; branchlets strongly dimorphic: long branchlets with leaves spirally arranged and radially spreading; short branchlets with leaves radially arranged in false whorls of 10-30 (often spirally spread like a discoid star). Leaves green, turning golden yellow before falling in autumn, narrowly oblanceolate-linear, flattened, 1.5-4 mm wide, flexible, stomatal lines abaxial, in 2 bands, separated by midvein, vascular bundle 1, resin canals 2 or 3 (-7), marginal. Pollen cones terminal on short branchlets, borne in umbellate clusters of 10-25, pendulous at maturity; pollen 2-saccate. Seed cones solitary, shortly pedunculate, erect or ± spreading, ovoid-globose, 2-seeded, maturing in 1st year. Seed scales thick, woody, deciduous at maturity. Bracts adnate to seed scales at base and shed together with them at maturity. Seeds with large, backward projecting wing extending beyond scale margin at maturity. Cotyledons 4-7. 2n = 44*.
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