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A tree with a tall, slender stem, said to attain 130 feet in height, with a girth of stem of only 4 feet, with short branches, forming a narrow pyramidal crown. The topmost branches are directed upwards, the middle ones are horizontally spreading, and the lower ones are pendulous, with their tips arching upwards. Bark brownish red, and scaling off in plates, the fragments often being heaped in quantity round the base of the tree. The leaves on vertical shoots stand out on all sides, but on horizontal shoots they point forwards on the upper side, being pseudo-distichous in three or four ranks on the lower side. They are flattened, 4-angled, straight, or curved to one side, ¾–1 inch long, linear, acute or obtuse with an apiculus, convex, and shining green on the ventral surface, marked with stomatic lines on each side of the prominent midrib of the dorsal surface. They persist for 4 or 5 years.

The buds, ovoid-conic with brown, membranous scales, the outermost of which end in long subulate points, are produced chiefly near the end of the shoot; and in unfolding, the uppermost scales are pushed off as a cap. The dark brown hairs, which are conspicuous on the young shoots, persist on the older branchlets of even 3 or 4 years' growth in wild specimens.

The male flowers, which are partly solitary and partly whorled, are stalked, ovoid-cylindric, bright red, ½–¾ inch long, and are surrounded at the base by numerous membranous bracts.

Cones, shortly-stalked 2–2½ inches long, bluish black when young, darkbrown when ripe, clustered, the upper ones being directed upwards, while the middle ones are horizontal, and the lower ones pendulous. Scales almost orbicular in outline, broad and convex, streaked on the outer surface, with the margin slightly bent inwards, undulate and denticulate. Bract obovate-cuneate, minute. Seeds small, – inch long, obovate, blackish brown, with a wing ⅓ inch long, obovate in outline.