160 MICROCACHRYS. 



This remarkable Taxad was discovered by William Lobb in 1846 

 while collecting for the Veitchian firm in southern Chile, and 

 introduced by him in the following year. Lobb sent to Mr. James 

 Veitch, Senr., the following account of the locality in which he 

 found it : 



The whole of southern Chile, from the Andes to the ocean, is 

 formed of a succession of ridges of mountains gradually rising from 

 the sea to the central ridge; the whole is thickly wooded from the 

 base to the snow line. Ascending the Andes of Comau, I observed 

 from the water to a considerable elevation, the forest to be composed 

 of a variety of trees, and of a sort of cane so thickly matted 

 together that it formed almost an impenetrable jungle. Further up, 

 amongst the melting snows, vegetation became so much stunted in 

 growth that trees seen below 100 feet high and 8 feet in diameter, 

 only attain the height of a few inches. 



On reaching the summit no vegetation exists, nothing but barren 



rocks which appear to rise among the snow that is many feet in 



depth and frozen so hard that in walking over it the foot makes 



but little impression. A little below the scenery is singular and grand. 



Rocky precipices stand like perpendicular walls 200 300 feet in height, 



over which roll the waters from the melting snows which appear like 



lines of silver. Sometimes these waters rush down with such force 



that boulders many tons in weight are hurled from their lofty stations 



to a depth of many hundred feet. In this wild region the Saxegothaea 



has its home associated with Podocarpus nubigenus, Fitzroya pcntagonicc^ 



Libocedrus tetragona, evergreen Beeches and other trees. 



It is not surprising that the introduction of this remarkable 



plant should have attracted much interest at the time, and that 



hopes should have been entertained of its proving a distinct 



addition to the British Arboretum. Such hopes, however, have not 



been realised ; the Saxegothsea is now but rarely seen, and when 



seen is scarcely noticed by the general observer. Although it has 



been in our midst more than half a century very few of the plants 



originally raised from Lobb's collection are now in existence. The 



cause of this is climatic, not so much in regard to temperature as 



to aerial and. hygrometric conditions; for whilst the average yearly 



temperature of southern Chile is nearly the same as that of Great 



Britain, the annual rainfall is three times as much as that of this 



country. 



MICROCACHRYS. 



Hooker til in Lond. Journ. Hot. IV. 149 (1845). Endlicher, Synops Conif. 227 (1847). 

 Bentham and Hooker, Gen. Plant. III. 433 (1881). Eichler in Engler and Prantl, Nat. 

 Pfl. Fam. 103 (1887). Masters in Journ. Linn. Soc. XXX. 10 (1893). 



A monotypic genus founded on a Tasmanian shrub in 1845 by 

 Sir Joseph Hooker who, adverting to the distribution of Taxads and 

 Conifers in that island, observes " that it contains a greater number 

 of species in proportion to its area, and these of more peculiar 



