ARAUCARIA IMBRICATA. 297 



The secretions are copious and are applied to various uses in the 

 region in which the trees are native ; the fragrant resin that exudes 

 from the trunk of A. brasttiensis is mixed with wax for making 

 candles ; the whitish resin of A. imbricata is used by the Chilians 

 much in the manner of mediaeval pharmacy, as a remedy for bruises, 

 wounds, etc y and when dry as a mitigant of pain, * The seeds or 

 " nuts " of all the large -coned species are edible and are consumed in 

 great quantities by the poorer inhabitants of the districts in which 

 these trees abound. Only one species is sufficiently hardy for the 

 climate of Great Britain, but most of the others are cultivated in a 

 young state in glass structures. 



The remains of ancestral forms of Araucaria have been discovered 

 in Jurassic strata ; an enormous antiquity must thence be assigned to 

 the race. The remains consist of entire cones, cone-scales and portions 

 of leafy cone-bearing branches. Remains have also been found in the 

 Oolite of Yorkshire and in the Eocene formations both of England and 

 France ; f the Araucarias therefore must have been widely distributed 

 over the globe before they receded to their present narrow limits. 



The name Araucaria is derived from Arauco, a province of southern 

 Chile, the habitat of the type or earliest discovered species. 



Araucaria imbricata. 



A lofty tree, 70 100 or more feet high, with a trunk 5 7 feet in 

 diameter near the ground, and usually with a dome-shaped head of 

 spreading branches ; the bark of the trunk fissured in a peculiar 

 manner which has been described as "a child's puzzle of knobby slabs 

 of different sizes with five or six decided sides to each, and fitted 

 together with the neatness of a honey-comb." 1 In Great Britain a 

 massive tree of singularly distinct aspect, with a sub-cylindric or 

 scarcely tapering trunk covered with roughish reddish brown bark with 

 transverse narrow ridges marking the position of the fallen leaves. 

 Primary branches in pseudo-whorls of four six and ramified distichous! y, 

 the lowermost more or less procumbent, and the uppermost gently 

 curved upwards. Leaves persistent twelve fifteen or more years, 

 spirally crowded and imbricated, ovate-lanceolate, 1 1'5 inch long, 

 rigid and pungent, slightly concave on the ventral side, smooth, bright 

 lustrous green and stomatiferous on both sides. Staminate flowers 

 solitary or in clusters of two five, sub-cylindric, 3 5 inches long, the 

 stamens with a narrowly lanceolate, acuminate, recurved connective 

 bearing six nine or more anther-cells. Cones solitary, sub-spherical, 

 broader at the base than at the apex, 4 6 or more inches in diameter, 

 the concrescent bract and scale wedge-shaped, prolonged at the apex 



* Los campesinos administran la resina en parches contra las contusiones y ulceras 

 putridas ; cicatriza las heridas recientes ; mitiga los dolores de cabeza producidos de 

 fluxiones y jaqueca, etc. Claudio Gay, Historia de Chile, V. 416. 



t It is an interesting fact that an Araucaria closely resembling the beautiful A. excelsa 

 of Norfolk Island, once inhabited this country ; fossil remains of it have been found in 

 Dorsetshire and Somersetshire. 



J The late Miss Marianne North ex W. B. Hcmslev in Gard. Chron. XXIV. (1885), 

 p. 276. 



