A. BRACK YPHYLLA AND HOMOLEPIS 81 



intricacies of this trio of trees, in all its ramifications 

 and variations, there is still another upstart, so far 

 unmentioned by us, to compete with, and it is called 

 the Umbellata. This is a tree with leaves like the 

 Brachyphylla and Homolepis, and with cones of the 

 colour and substance of the A. Firma ; in short, it 

 reads as a halfway house between the two, and this 

 is what probably spells its true story of an hybrid 

 history. 



The queries, then, which trouble the mind of the 

 more unsophisticated, and the questions that present 

 themselves to the would-be unravellers of this tangle, 

 seem to be very much after this pattern : 



(i) Are the Brachyphylla and Homolepis one and 

 the same tree ? 



Some authorities of our day have answered to this 

 ** No," distinctly if not quite emphatically, but still 

 " No." They maintain that certain slight obscure 

 but sufficient differences exist betw^een them. They 

 quote the fact that the different positions of the resin 

 ducts substantiates their case. From this view 

 E. H. Wilson, after a recent journey to their native 

 country, dissents. It is true that he does not refer 

 to these resin-duct differences, but he assuredly saves 

 the situation for some of us and simplifies the matter 

 for those who flounder in the sea of doubt. There 

 are many to whom resin ducts and their position are 

 but the by-play of a hidden mystery. 



He (Wilson) further tells us that any little varia- 

 tions of form or inconsistencies of habit are traits 

 of character, traceable to those inconsistencies of age 

 that all life, human and plant, is liable to, and this 

 is an arrival at opinion of natural progression that all 

 those in the sere and yellow are easily able to com- 

 prehend, and that all those in the green of youth are 

 too ready to jump at ribald conclusions upon, without 

 any further encouragement from their seniors. 



