500 A NEW SPECIES OF ARAUCARIA. 
imported and reared, as is well known, by our nurserymen to 
a great extent, so that plants which a few years ago, could 
only be had, and with difficulty, at from two to five guineas 
each, may now be had for less than that number of shil- 
lings. 
Closely allied to A. imbricata, and for a long time con- 
founded with it, is another South American species, but 
wholly confined to the eastern side, and I believe only in the 
far interior mountains, of Brazil, in a much more northern 
latitude than the former, and consequently less hardy ; this 
was at length distinguished by Richard, by the name of 
A, Brasiliana. It is more lax and spreading in its habit and 
the more graceful tree of the two. They are however both 
of them remarkable for the great size of their dark rigid 
foliage, the furthest removed from the acicular form so cha- 
racteristic of the majority of the Conifere. The only other 
species hitherto known to us, present a very different ap- 
pearance from the peculiar form and size of the leaves, more 
resembling those of some Junipers; they are the Arau- 
caria excelsa, and A. Cunninghami, and these inhabit a widely 
different part of the world from those now noticed. 
The first of them, namely A. excelsa, is a discovery for 
which we are indebted to Captain Cook’s second voyage. 
On approaching Norfolk Island the officers observed a 
gigantic tree, rearing its huge trunk frequently to a height of 
40 or 60 feet, like a basaltic column, below the branches. 
This proved to be a new Araucaria, though at first named, by 
Forster, Cupressus columnaris ; it was then called Dombeya 
excelsa by Lambert, Araucaria excelsa in Aiton’s Hortus 
Kewensis, 2nd edition, Entassa heterophylla of Salisbury, 
Altingia excelsa, Don mst. by Loudon in his “ Hortus Bri- 
tannicus,” but again restored to Araucaria in Loudon's 
“Arboretum Britannicum." Of this majestic tree, I find a 
very interesting account in the Botanical MSS. of my friend, 
Mr. James Backhouse, now before me. * This stately tree 
is similar in figure to the Norway Spruce; but its branches 
are in more distant whorls, and usually about five in a whorl. 
The young lateral branchlets are deciduous, or at least, they 
