232 ARAUCARINEiE 



CUNNINGHAMIA SINENSIS or LANCEOLATA 

 (Of the tribe ARAUCARINEiE) 



The flora of the mystic mine world 

 Around me hfts on crystal stems 

 The petals of its clustered gems. 



Whittier, 



The Cunninghamia by its appearance — and these 

 appearances, upon a further investigation among 

 the written-up pages of its past, do not belie the 

 impression — seems to betray evidences that it has 

 been unearthed from some " mystic mine world," 

 and forthwith bidden again from there to take up 

 its place again upon a more modern earth. 



It is one of those trees that lends an idea that at 

 one time it had been a tenant of prehistoric swamps, 

 and a near neighbour of snakes, mosquitoes, and 

 swimming fowls ; or that it dated back from those 

 qualis ab incepto times that we are told of, when all 

 the world, physical and animal, was either young, 

 very young, or unarrived. As it has been credibly 

 ascertained and scientifically reported that it repre- 

 sents one of the oldest types of vegetation existent, 

 all such impressions are satisfactorily endorsed, and 

 therefore need not be apologized for. 



In taking up a rightful place among the genera 

 of a modern botanical world, it has had its vicissitudes. 

 Those who pull the ropes make the bells ring, and 

 those who rule in the botanical world call the tune. 

 Finally, it may be said to have been consigned by 

 them to the care of the Araucarineae, but not before 

 it had been tossed to and fro like a nobody's child, 

 among tree tribes descript and tree tribes nondescript. 

 We ought, in fairness to its career, whether it ag- 

 grandizes it or not in the eyes of the world, to add 



