2432

arboretum and fruticetum.

PART III.

Commercial Statistics. The price of plants, in the London nurseries, is twoguineas each.

Genus VI.

ARAUCA'RIA Ruin et Pav. The Araucaria. Lin. Si/st. Dice'cia

Monadelphia.

Synonymcs. Eut&ssa Sal., Colymbfea 5a/., DombSya Lamb., Cupressus Forst., the Southern

r'lno.

Derivation . From Araucanos , the name of the people in whose country Arauc&ria imbricata growsin Chili.

Description, %c. Magnificent evergreen trees, natives of South America,Polynesia, and Australia; one of them, the Araucaria imbricata, as hardy inthe climate of Britain as the cedar of Lebanon.

} ]. A. imbrioa'ta Pav. The imbricate-feawd Araucaria, or Chili Pine.

Identification. Pav. Diss in M,’m Acad. Reg. Med. Mat., 1. p. 197. ; Willd. Sp. PI., 4. p. 850. ;

Ait. Ilort. Kew., 5. p. 412. ; I.amb. Pin., ed. 2., No. 52. ; Laws. Man., p. 395.

Synonymcs. A. Dombtyf Rich. Mem. sur les Conif., p. 86., Lindl. in Penn. Cyc.; Pinus AraucariaMol. Sag. sulla Stor. Nat. del Chili, p. 182. ; Uolymbta quadripiria Salts!) i nLinn. Trans., 8. p, 315.;Doinbtyrt chilensis Lam. Encyc. ; Pino de Chili, Span. ; Peghuen in the Andes ; Sir JosephBanks’s Pine.

The Sexes. There is a tree at Kew which bore female catkins in 1836; and a male plant at Boyton,which blossomed in the same year.

Engravings. Lamb. Pin., ed. 2., t. 56. and 57. ; Rich. Mfm. sur les Coriif., t. 20. and 21.; and ourfins. 2286. to 2293. Fig. 2287. is a cone or female catkin in a young state, from Lambert; fig. 2292.is°a*specimen of the female tree at Kew; fig. 2291. is a portion of the male tree with the full-grown catkin, from Lambert’s Monograph ; and fig. 2288. is the full-grown female cone ; all toour usual scale, that is, a sixth part of the natural size.. Fig. 2286. is a portion of a cone of thenatural size. Fig. 2290. a. is a seed with the scale and wing of the natural size, and b is the kernel;andyig. 2289. is a leaf of the natural size.

Spec. Char. Leaves in eights, imbricated, ovate-lanceolate, with per-sistent mucros. (Pav.) A tree, growing to the height of 150 ft.; a nativeof the Cordilleras, in Chili. Introduced in 1796, and flowering from Sep-tember to November.

Description. Flowers dioecious. — Male. Catkin dipsacus- (teasel-) shaped,ovate-cylindrical. Scales numerous, sessile, closely imbricated round a com-mon conical axis; filament-like, obovate, somewhat woody ; with an oblongrefiexed point. Anthers numerous, oblong, 2-celled; connate a little belowthe points of the scales, afterwards dependent; free, at first adpressed to thescales, afterwards, having shed their pollen, divaricate. — Female. Catkinovate. Scales numerous, wedge-shaped, 2-flowered. Germen wedge-shaped,compressed in the two opposite sides. Style none. Stigma 2-valved, callous,thick : exterior valve ovate-acuminate, larger, concave, with a linear inflexedpoint; interior smaller, somewhat linear, obtuse, erect. Pericarp : conesphaerico-ovate; scales connivent, coriaceous and woody, wedge-shaped,terminated by a long awl-shaped point, 2-seeded. Seed; nut wedge-shaped,terminated at the apex by a short, callous, marginal wing, bluntly tetragonalat the base; afterwards gibbous, compressed, with opposite sides ; tegumentcoriaceous. Nucleus of the same figure. (Pavon Dissert, in Mem. Acad. Reg.Med. Matrit.,\. p. 197., as quoted by Lambert.) Cone from 8 in. to 8L in.broad, and from 7 in. to 7Lin. long ; seed 2\ in. long, and f in. broad.

This is a very remarkable tree, the female of which, according to Pavon, isabout 150 ft. high ; while the male is seldom more than 40 ft. or 50ft. high.The trunk is quite straight, and without knots, w ith a strong arrow-like leadingshoot, pushing upwards. It is covered with double bark, the inner part ofwhich, in old trees, is 5 in. or 6 in. thick ; fungous, tenacious, porous, andlight; and from it, as from almost every other part of the tree, resin flows ingreat abundance : the outer bark is of nearly equal thickness, resembling cork