226 ARAUCARINE^ 



ARAUCARIAS 

 (Of the natural order CONIFERiE, of the 



FAMILY PlNACEiE, OF the TRIBE ARAUCA- 



RlNEiE) 



The prudent will observe what passions reign 

 In various plants. 



Ovid. 



In such Strains as these have the poetical world 

 written, from the days of Ovid and onward, upon the 

 sensibilities of plant life. Had some stray versifiers 

 turned their minstrel attention towards the subject 

 of the sensibilities of human feelings, and how these 

 feelings upon occasions have been displayed towards 

 certain representatives of the tree world, what a 

 telling text might they not have found to discourse 

 upon from the unamiabilities of the Araucaria Im- 

 bricata, or Puzzle Monkey, and what rules for guidance 

 might they not have laid down, not only for the 

 prudent, but for even the thick-skinned and venture- 

 some to observe. 



Our remarks upon this particular tribe of trees — 

 as far as they more immediately concern our little 

 sea-girt island — ^are practically reduced to a mono- 

 logue upon that old-established and familiar friend, 

 which men, women, and children, ofttimes from 

 tangible testimonies derived from various methods of 

 experiment, have acquired the habit of addressing as 

 the Puzzle Monkey, but which, when given due titular 

 rank, should assume and have conferred upon it the 

 more dignified name of Araucaria Imbricata. 



There are other, Australasian, Araucarias, and very 

 striking-looking trees they are too, in their queer 

 way, but they do not flourish under the more chilly 

 conditions of our out-of-door situations. 



