504 A NEW SPECIES OF ARAUCARIA. 
side; but in proportion as the branch enlarges by age the 
base of the leaf becomes more and more dilated, and at length 
so remarkably so, that the diameter of the flattened dilated 
base is equal to the length of the leaf, and takes a trans- 
versely hexagonal form, bounded by a white line, which 
separates it from the surrounding leaves, as shewn in the 
lower part of our main figure. Thus on the older branches, 
the leaves resemble a series of flattened hexagonal scales, 
with a leafy spine projecting from the centre. The cones are 
produced on the topmost branches, close to the central stem, 
* rarely more than ten or twelve in number, varying greatly in 
size and in form, from spheerical to pear-shaped, the narrow 
part downwards, and oval.” In my specimens the form of 
the cone is nearly oval, or approaching to globose, flattened 
at both ends, about 9 inches long and 7 broad, it is upright, 
and seated on a short leafy branchlet arising from a hori- 
zontal main branch. It is composed of a number of very 
large scales loosely compacted, and inserted upon a central 
column or receptacle. These scales are all spreading, the ma- 
jority of them nearly horizontal, about 4 inches long and 3 
broad. When lying in their natural position they present each 
a thickened face to the spectator, tapering to an edge or wing 
at each side; and towards the anterior edge or apex an 
acuminated and recurved spinous point appears, and these 
collected reflexed points are so stiff and pungent that the fruit 
is hard to lift in a perfect state, even with thick gloves on the 
hands :—above this seems to be another smaller scale; but 
when the scales are separated, this upper one is found incor- 
porated with the lower, or, in other words is a duplicature of 
the scale itself, and may be accounted for by considering the 
scale as a leaf, of which the upper base is still more dilated or 
prolonged than in the stem-leaves above described, and that 
base folded down upon the upper face of its own leaf. Be that 
as it may, these two scales, or lips, as shewn in our figure 7, 
soon become conjoined into one, and the whole of the portion 
so united, forming indeed, the mass of the scale, is a very 
‘soft and pulpy substance, and bears within or upon it, the 
