304 ARAUCARIA EXCELSA. 



through the littoral region of Queensland to Cape York peninsula ; it 



has also been found on Mounts Arfak and Obree, in New Guinea, up to 



6,000 feet above the level of the sea ; around Moreton Bay, where it 



is most abundant, it spreads eighty miles inwards. The species 



commemorates Allan Cunningham, one of the earliest and most energetic 

 of Australian explorers. 



Araucaria excelsa. 



A stately tree 150 200 feet high with a trunk 5 7 feet in diameter, 

 usually free of branches for more than one-half the height and crowned 

 with a spreading top. In young trees cultivated in Great Britain, the 

 branches are in whorls of four seven, five being the predominant 

 number, spreading horizontally and ramified distichously. Branchlets 

 close-set and parallel, sometimes rigid and in one plane, but more 

 frequently decurved at the distal end. Leaves persistent several years, 

 spirally crowded, awl-shaped, straight or falcately curved, 0*25 0'75 inch 

 long and of a uniform bright grass-green, broader at the base, keeled 

 on the dorsal side and closely imbricated on fertile branches preserved 

 as herbarium specimens. Cones spherical, 4 6 inches in diameter, 

 broadest at the base ; scales broadly cuneate, prolonged at the apex into 

 a lanceolate, acuminate, incurved spine. 



Araucaria excelsa, R. Brown in Alton's Hort. Kew. ed. II. Vol. V. 412 (1813). 

 London, Arb. et Fmt Brit. IV. 2440, with figs. Parlatore, D. C. Prodr. XVI. 

 373. And others. 



Norfolk Island in the south Pacific Ocean, discovered during Captain 

 Cook's second voyage; and introduced to the Royal Gardens at Kew 

 by Sir Joseph Banks about the year 1793. The trees in Norfolk Island, 

 now greatly reduced in number by felling for the sake of their excellent 

 timber, generally stand singly or in small groups ; they are dotted over 

 the island like the trees in an English park. Araucaria excelsa is more 

 cultivated in this country than any of the Australian Araucarias, a 

 preference which is owing to its formal but elegant habit, its bright 

 verdant foliage and the facility with which it is propagated from cuttings; 

 it is also much cultivated along the Mediterranean littoral of France and 

 Italy, the sea air and other climatic conditions of the region being 

 highly favourable to its growth. Among the varieties occasionally seen in 

 cultivation are glauca with foliage of a paler green and more or less 

 glaucous ; alia spica with the tips of the branchlets cream- white ; robusta 

 larger in all its parts with foliage of a deeper green, also known as 

 Goldieana, Sanderiana, Napoleon Baumann, etc. 



Araucaria Rulei. 



A medium-sized tree 50 60 feet high with horizontal branches 

 in whorls of five seven, and distichous, sub-pendulous branchlets, 

 but which in plants cultivated under glass in Great Britain 

 are sometimes horizontal like their primaries or slightly ascending. 

 Leaves persistent several years, spirally crowded, closely imbricated and 

 incurved, narrowly oblong-lanceolate, obtuse or sub-acute, about 0'5 inch 



