In all this my wife and myself took the greatest delight. [Image] Hammerfield, Penshurst. From my hereditary regard for hammers--two broken hammer-shafts being the crest of our family for hundreds of years--I named the place Hammerfield; and so it remains to this day. The improvements and additions to the house and the grounds were considerable. A greenhouse was built, 120 feet long by 32 feet wide. Roomy apartments were added to the house. The trees and shrubs planted about the grounds were carefully selected. The coniferae class were my special favourites.英文原著 · 《An Autobiography》
Whether common or rare, before your acquaintance has had time to ripen into friendship, away go the freaky little creatures to nest in the tree-tops of the Canadian coniferous forests.英文原著 · 《Bird Neighbors》
Why they should prefer coniferous trees, unless to utilize the needles for a nest, is not understood. Low trees and bushes are favorite building sites with them as with others of the family, though these thrushes disdain a mud lining to their nests. Those who have heard the olive-backed thrush singing an even-song to its brooding mate compare it with the veery's, but it has a break in it and is less simple and pleasing than the latter's.英文原著 · 《Bird Neighbors》
The seed offers another striking example; the Palaeozoic seeds (if we leave the seed-like organs of certain Lycopods out of consideration) were always, so far as we know, highly complex structures, with an elaborate vascular system, a pollen-chamber, and often a much-differentiated testa. In the present day such seeds exist only in a few Gymnosperms which retain their ancient characters--in all the higher Spermophytes the structure is very much simplified, and this holds good even in the Coniferae, where there is no countervailing complication of ovary and stigma.英文原著 · 《Darwin and Modern Science》
You ask about amber. I believe all the species are extinct (i.e. without the amber has been doctored), and certainly the greater number are. (317/5. For an account of plants in amber see Goeppert and Berendt, "Der Bernstein und die in ihm befindlichen Pflanzenreste der Vorwelt," Berlin, 1845; Goeppert, "Coniferen des Bernstein," Danzig, 1883; Conwentz, "Monographie der Baltischen Bernsteinbaume," Danzig, 1890.)英文原著 · 《More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume I》
Victoria, ever since, together with Albert, she had visited Scotland in the early years of her marriage, had felt that her heart was in the Highlands. She had returned to them a few years later, and her passion had grown. How romantic they were! And how Albert enjoyed them too! His spirits rose quite wonderfully as soon as he found himself among the hills and the conifers. "It is a happiness to see him," she wrote. What can equal the beauties of nature!" she exclaimed in her journal, during one of these visits. "What enjoyment there is in them!英文原著 · 《Queen Victoria》