198 FITZROYA PATAGONICA. 



England in 1857 with an excellent herbarium, copious notes, analyses 

 and drawings ; with these, and by means of the accurate information 

 he possessed of the vegetation of the island, he rendered valuable 

 assistance to Sir Joseph Hooker in the compilation of the "Flora 

 of Tasmania," besides defraying a large portion of the expense of the 

 illustrations.* 



Fitzroya patagonica. 



A dioecious tree of variable dimensions ; at its greatest development 

 on the western slopes of the Andes of southern Chile, with a trunk 

 80 100 or more feet high, covered with deeply furrowed, fibrous bark 

 3 inches thick : at its highest vertical limit, a small much branched 

 shrub. In Great Britain, a low tree or shrub of irregular outline ; the 

 arborescent form with a trunk 9 - 1 2 inches in diameter covered 

 with pale reddish brown bark fissured longitudinally into narrow plates,, 

 and exposing a dark inner cortex. Primary branches unequal in length 

 and thickness, and very irregularly ramified. Branchlets flexible, 

 obscurely tetrastichous, the youngest shoots decurved, and often pinnately 

 divided. Leaves in decussate pairs, persistent several years, but becoming 

 effete in the third or fourth season, narrowly ovate-oblong or spathulate 

 oblong, mucronate, more or less imbricated, dark green and concave- 

 above, keeled on the back and with two white stomatiferous lines. 

 Staminate flowers not seen. Strobiles 011 short lateral shoots of the 

 preceding year, globose, composed of three decussate pairs of" 

 scales, each with a prominent compressed unibo on the outer side, the 

 largest uppermost pair fertile, each bearing three seeds or fewer by 

 abortion. 



Fitzroya patagonica, Hooker til, ex. Hooker W. in Bot. Mag. sub t. 4616 (1851). 

 Lindley in Paxton's Fl. Gard. II. 147. Gay, Fl. Chil V. 411. Van Houtte, Flore 

 des Serres, VII. 130, with fig Carriere, Traite Conif. ed. II. 463. Gordon, Pinet. 

 ed. II. 115. Masters in Journ. R. Hort. Soc. XIV. 219. 



The geographical range of Fitzroya patagonica on the South American 

 continent has not yet been clearly ascertained ; so far as at present 

 known, its northern limit may be placed at about the 40th parallel of 

 south latitude whence it spreads southwards along the Andes to the 

 Straits of Magellan. It is very abundant 011 the brows of the hills 

 around Valdivia where it ascends to 1,500 feet elevation, and where 

 its tall columnar stems are visible from a great distance, f It was- 

 introduced from this locality by the Veitchian firm in 1849 through 

 William Lobb. 



Although Fitzroya patagonica has been in cultivation half-a-centuiy 

 and has proved quite hardy, it cannot be regarded as a satisfactory 

 subject for British gardens. In the most favourable localities as in. 

 Devon and Cornwall, its growth is slow, and when left to itself it 

 often forms a multiplicity of leader shoots, none of which grow more 



* Flora of Tasmania, Introduction, p. 127. 



t Richard Pearce in lit. , who affirmed that it is the Fitzroya which supplies the valuable 

 Alerze timber of the Chilians, not Libocedrus tetragona as stated by most authors. 



