174 HARDY CONIFEROUS TREES. 



teresting sight it is to see the squaws seated by the bright 

 camp fire roasting the cones, until the hard scales fly open 

 with a crackling noise and liberate the seeds. The cones are 

 trcily noble objects, one now before me produced in Southern 

 . England being fully 6 inches long by nearly the same in 

 greatest width, and of a pleasing rich chocolate colour, and 

 composed of sharply hooked and downward bent scales. The 

 seeds are large, only thirty being included in one ounce 

 weight. 



Amongst the Afghan villagers of the Himalayas, the seeds 

 of P. Gerardiana are highly prized, while they are regarded as a 

 rare delicacy by the poorer residents in Northern India ; and 

 in Nepaul and Bhotan those of the beautiful P. longifolia are 

 much in request. The peculiarly interesting P. monophylla 

 produces small cones hardly more than 3 inches long, but the 

 seeds, which are wingless, and produced two beneath each 

 scale, are a rare delicacy amongst the hill tribes of the 

 Sierra-Nevada mountains, and also form an important article 

 of commerce amongst several of these Indian communities. 

 P. edulis also produces large and very palatable seeds, though 

 the cones are but small, and in New Mexico and Colorado 

 they are extensively used as food by the native Indians of 

 these parts. The well-known Araucaria imbricata produces, 

 even in this country, immense globular cones about 9 inches 

 in diameter, each containing upwards of two hundred seeds. 

 These are large and edible, and used as food raw, roasted, 

 and boiled by the natives of Chili, particularly the Araucaro 

 Indians of the South. To the English palate they are not 

 very agreeable, whether raw or cooked, the flavour being de- 

 cidedly resinous, this, however, to a great extent being got 

 rid of by boiling the seeds. 



It is hardly likely that pine nuts will ever find much favour 

 in this country, although the comfits supplied by Messrs. 

 Fuller, of the Strand and Regent Street, and which consist of 

 the kernels embedded in sugar, are both toothsome and 

 enjoyable. 



