ARAUCARIA OF ECONOMIC PLANTS. 21 



of silver.' ' Many times have we pitched our tents in its shade ;' 

 thus verifying the words, ' I sat down under his shadow with 

 great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.' " Upon this 

 evidence he considers the Apricot tree to meet all the require- 

 ments of the context, and that it is the only tree in Palestine 

 that does so. 



Arar, a name in Morocco for Callitris qicadrivalvis. (See 

 Sandarach.) 



Araucaria, a genus of trees of the Pine family (Coniferse), 

 so called from the Araucarians, a race of people living in the 

 Andean regions of Chili, where the genus is represented by 

 Araucaria imhricata, a tree attaining the height of 100 or more 

 feet. This remarkable plant was first introduced into this 

 country in 1794, living plants having been brought home by 

 Archibald Menzies, surgeon and botanist in Vancouver's voyage 

 of survey. At a dinner given by the Viceroy of Chili to the 

 officers of the ship, part of the dessert consisted of some kind 

 of nuts, which being strange to Menzies, he took some of them 

 on board the ship and sowed them in a box of earth, where they 

 vegetated, and five plants were safely brought to England. One 

 of these plants is still growing at Kew, another at Windsor 

 Castle, and a third at Dropmore, the latter having outgrown the 

 other two, and is now a fine tree 60 feet high. Thirty years 

 later a number of young plants were introduced by the Horti- 

 cultural Society, and great importations followed, and thousands 

 of plants were distributed by nurserymen throughout the 

 country, many of them becoming fine trees ; but a great number 

 in certain localities succumbed to the severity of the winters of 

 1866 and 1867 ; the original Kew and Dropmore trees were 

 comparatively uninjured. The following species are now known, 

 all of which have been introduced, and fine specimens of them 

 are in the greenhouses at Kew, being too tender to live in the 

 open air. 



A. hrasiliensis is a native of the Organ Mountains of 

 Brazil, and has the general appearance of the above, but its 

 leaves are less in size and not so closely imbricated ; and, alto- 



