244<2 



ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. 



PART III. 



2299 



easily be mistaken for distinct species. The bark abounds 

 in turpentine; but there is none in the wood, which is white, 

 tough, and close-grained. Captain Cook, de- 

 scribing the tree when he discovered it, says : — 

 " The wood is white, close-grained, tough, and 

 light. Turpentine had exuded out of most of 

 the trees, and the sun had inspissated it into a 

 resin, which was found sticking to the trunks, 

 and lying about the roots. These trees shcot 

 .. V v\| out their branches like all other pines; with 

 IJL-LjJAyiij j.j^jg difference, that the branches of these are 

 2298 much smaller and shorter, so that the knots 

 become nothing when the tree is wrought for use. I took 

 notice that the largest of them had the smallest and 

 shortest branches, and were crowned, as it were, at the top by a spreading 

 head, like a bush. This was what led some on board into the extravagant 

 notion that they were basaltes." {Cook's Second Voynge,\o\. ii. p. 14-9., as 

 quoted by Lambert.) In Captain Hunter's Journal of the Transactions at Port 

 .Tachson and Norfolk Island, also quoted by Mr. Lambert, it is mentioned that 

 these trees grow there to a prodigious height, and are proportionably thick, 

 beingfrom 150ft. to 200 ft. high, and from 12 ft. or 14 ft. to 28 ft. or *30 ft. in 

 circumference. " These trees," Captain Hunter continues, "from their immense 

 height, have a very noble appearance, being, in general, very straight, and free 

 from branches to 40 ft., and sometimes 60 ft., above the 

 ground." When some of these trees were felled. Captain 

 Hunter observed that "most of them discharged a consider- 

 able quantity of clear water, which continued to flow at every 

 fresh cut of the axe." He adds, that 

 there was no turpentine in them, but what , 

 circulated " between the bark and the 

 body of the tree, and which is soluble in 

 water;" also, that the timber is very 

 short-grained and spongy. He states that u: 

 the wood is so heavy, that 5 trees out of" 

 6, when cut down, sank in water; but that, 

 out of 37 trees cut down for repairing a 

 ship, 27 were found defective. In green- 

 houses near London, the rate of growth 

 is 1 ft. or more a year ; and a tree in the 

 palm-house of Messrs. Loddiges attained 

 2300 j.[^g height of 40 ft., when it was stopped 



in its progress by the glass roof, but, in general, this is the 

 case when they are less than half that height. 



Geography, History, S(c. The Araucaria excelsa is a native 

 of New Caledonia, in Queen Charlotte's Foreland, and on 

 a small neighbouring island, which is a mere sand-bank, 

 only I of a mile in circuit ; also on the Isle of Pines, where it was found 

 by Captain Cook. It was subsequently found by Dr. Brown, when on 

 board the Investigator, with Captain Flinders, growing in great abundance 

 on several parts of the east coast of New Holland ; but it was there not 

 above 60 ft. or 70 ft. in height. It was introduced, according to Lambert, by 

 Governor Philip; but, according to the Horttts Kewevsk, by Sir Joseph 

 Banks, in 1793. The plant is not uncommon in green-house collections, 

 in most of which, in a few years, it grows as high as the roof will admit. 

 One at Kew, which was at one time the largest in the country, was tried 

 in the open air, and died the first winter. One in the conservatory in 

 the Hammersmith Nursery, which was planted in April, 1804, in seven years 

 rose as high as the glass, and was obliged to be cut down ; and this has been 

 the case repeatedly since. It has now wide-spreading, pendulous, deep green 



2301 



