190 RARE TREES IN ABBOTSBURY CASTLE GARDENS. 



Inferior Oolite of Bruton,in Somersetshire, in the Yorkshire Oolites, 

 and the Wealden of England. It is dioecious or rarely monoecious, 

 cones terminal, leaves globular, coriaceous and spiral. A. 

 Goepperti was found in the Eocene beds of Bournemouth by 

 Mr. Starkie Gardner, associated with a rich flora comprising 

 Ferns, Smilacece, and Avoids^ from which he concludes that 

 the Eocene bush-growth on the alluvial banks of the great 

 Bournemouth river, and its probable extension along the coast 

 of a submerged continent, must have been similar to that of 

 the present day on the Brisbane river, and on the shores of Moreton 

 Bay, on the east coast of Australia. The long embedded plants of 

 our Eocene coasts seem to have risen up and to live again in these 

 far distant regions, and through them we are able to picture the 

 long sandy surf-beaten coasts, and fringed with Araucarias, Gum 

 trees. Palms, and Ferns of the present pine-clad Bournemouth. 

 It is a native of the southern hemisphere, trunk erect, branches 

 horizontal and decumbent. Araucaria imbricata forms vast forests 

 extending from the south of Chili to Brazil. A. Brazilefisii has 

 a similar distribution. Araucaria has not been found in the 

 Cretaceous Beds except in New Zealand, where two species have 

 been found in the coal-bearing beds of that formation. 



There is a group of Australian species, all needle-leaved and of 

 gigantic size, of which A. exceha attains a height of 230 feet with a 

 trunk 90 feet in circumference. 



Cryptomeria. 

 Cryptomeria belongs to the Taxodinece. It is represented by 

 only one living species C.Japonica, a native of China and Japan, and 

 can apparently be traced from C. Sternberr/n, Gardn. found in the 

 Eocene basaltic tufas of Ballypaladay and Glenarni in Antrim and 

 Ardtun Head, Isle of Mull. It has close affinities both with 

 Taxodium and Sequoia, at first it was relegated to Araucaria, after- 

 wards to Sequoia. The attachment of the cones to the branches 

 proves it to be a Cryptomeria. There is nothing to distinguish it, at 

 least in appearance, from the Japanese type. 



