ARAUCARIA. 295 



Cones large, globose, the scales closely imbricated, the margins of which 

 are usually attenuated into wings at the base, thickened and woody at 

 the apex and enclosing a single flattened wingless seed adnate to the 

 scale at the base. 



The Araucarias are not absolutely dioecious, probably far from it. 

 There is a tree of A. imbricata at Bicton in Devonshire that has 

 frequently borne both staminate and ovuliferous flowers ; another tree at 

 South Lytchctt in Dorsetshire showed the same peculiarity until it was 

 unfortunately uprooted by the great gale of March 3rd, 1897, and other 

 instances have also been recorded. The difference in the sex of the trees 

 was generally believed to be the cause of the difference in aspect and 

 habit which occurs so frequently in A. imbricata and to some extent in 

 other species as A. Rulei and A. excelsa ; but the Araucarias are now 

 known to be polymorphous irrespective of sex. 



The genus is restricted to a comparatively limited area in the 

 southern hemisphere, viz., temperate South America, eastern Australia, 

 and a few of the islands in the south Pacific Ocean. The South 

 American species form in places pure forests of considerable extent ; 

 the Australian species, from climatic causes, are confined to districts 

 in the neighbourhood of the coast ; and the insular species are 

 restricted for the most part to a single island or small group of 

 islands, and exist in numbers so few that they appear to be the last 

 relics of a race that is passing away. Of the ten or twelve species 

 known to science, the two endemic in South America and one in 

 Australia are distinguished from the others by a difference in their 

 foliage, cones and in some other characteristics ; the Araucarias 

 therefore admit of a division into two sections thus : 



COLYMBEA. Leaves relatively large, flattened, broad at the base and 

 more or less embracing the stem, acuminate and pungent. Cones among 

 the largest in the Order, the scales of which are scarcely winged and 

 the seeds almost destitute of a basilar appendage. 



EUTASSA. Leaves linear-subulate, obscurely four-angled, compressed, 

 spirally arranged and spreading or falcately curved from all sides of their 

 axis. Cones relatively small, the scales broadly winged and the seeds 

 with a distinct basilar appendage.* 



The economic value of the Araucarias has not yet been much 

 developed. The timber of A. imbricata where accessible, is used in 

 southern Chile for building and other purposes ; the wood is yellowish, 

 beautifully veined and admits of a fine polish; the wood of A. Bidivilh 

 is close-grained and durable, and much used in Queensland for building. 



* A further distinction between the two sections has been referred to the mode of 

 germination of the seeds which is said to be hypogeal or epigeal, according as the 

 cotyledons are developed beneath or above the soil, the former being common to the 

 broad-leaved (Colymbea) section, and the latter to the narrow-leaved (Eutassa) section. It 

 is, however, doubtful whether the distinction so set up has the full significance that has 

 been attached to it ; instances have been observed in which the process of germination of 

 the seeds of species included in one section differ inter se almost as much as that by 

 which the two sections are distinguished. But further observation extended to all the 

 species is still wanting. 



