Fir trees - Zoological and botanical plate - Ernst Haeckel, Art forms of nature

Reproduction engraving of: Fir trees

Original title Coniferae - Zapfenbäume

Poster of Araucaria - Flowering plants of the main class of Seed Plants (Gymnospermae), Class of Conifers (Coniferae)

Illustration from the book Kunstformen der Natur, which is a collection of artistic lithographs of natural sciences published by the German biologist Ernst Haeckel between 1899 and 1904.

This naturalistic illustration is part of an overall style inspired by Ernst Haeckel, which greatly influenced the emerging Art Nouveau movement at the beginning of the ^20th century. This work, illustrating the impressive beauty and great diversity of the biological world, was complemented by a certain amount of scientific information, some excerpts of which are reproduced below.

This information is over 120 years old and some of it may be outdated!

Scientific classification:

 Phylum of flowering plants (Phanerogamae or Anthophyta)
Main class of Gymnosperms (Gymnospermae)
Class of Fir or Conifers (Coniferae)

Scientific notice (extract) accompanying the poster print of Coniferae - Fir trees :

The diverse group of firs or Conifers constitutes the most evolved group among the naked seed plants (Gymnospermae). This ancient main class of Phanerogams phylogenetically forms the transition between the fern-like plants (Pteridophyta, Plates 52 and 92) and the recent seed plants (Angiospermae). Their transitional link is manifested notably in the structure of the flowers. In the Angiosperms, the female ovules surrounding the embryo (the macrospore) are enveloped in coiled carpels to form an ovary with style and stigma. This configuration is lacking in the Gymnosperms where the ovules are exposed directly on the cone scales. The oldest Gymnosperms include the Cycads and Ginkgoaceae (Fig. 9); they still resemble their ancestors, the scale ferns (Selagineae), with motile gametes, microspores. These became pollen grains with smooth, immobile germ cells in the later Gymnosperms, Conifers, and Gnetophytes, as well as in all Angiosperms. The extraordinary diversity and beauty of angiosperm flowers and fruits are a product of the last great chapter in the history of life, the Tertiary; the Angiosperms began their development only in the preceding period. Before that, during the Jurassic and Triassic periods, Gymnosperms dominated the plant kingdom on earth, but without true "flowers." Characteristic fruits of Conifers include, in the older Taxaceae, fleshy berries with an aril (Fig. 6), and in the later Pinaceae, woody cones (Strobi) where the woody carpel scales are arranged in dense spirals around the common axis of the inflorescence.

Species present on the Sapins - Araucaria naturalist board :

• Araucaria brasiliana
• Picea excelsa
• Abies bracteata
• Chamaecyparis obtusa
• Thujopsis dolabrata
• Juniperus communis
• Libocedrus decurrens
• Phyllocladus rhomboidalis
• Ginkgo biloba
• Sequoia gigantea
• Cupressus sempervirens
• Taxodium distichum
• Pinus serotina