CHAPTEll VII 



THE ARAUCARIA FAMILY 



'And so the grandeur of the Forest-tree 

 Comes not by casting in a formal mould, 

 But from its own divine vitality.' Wordsworth, 



As an additional illustration of existing cone- 

 bearing trees which form links with the past we may 

 briefly consider the genera Araucaria and Agathis, 

 the two members of the family Araucarieae. It is 

 generally agreed that the branches of the genealogical 

 tree of this family extended farther back into the 

 past than in the case of the majority of Conifers. By 

 some authors the surviving representatives of the 

 x\raucarian stock are considered to have a strong 

 claim to be regarded as the most primitive as well as 

 the oldest of cone-bearing trees, though this opinion, 

 like many others, is not held by botanists as a whole. 

 This is not the place to discuss matters of controversy, 

 and I shall confine myself to a general consideration 

 of Araucaria and Agathis from the point of view of 

 their present distribution and the part they played in 



