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ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. 



PART III. 



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margin, and remaining attached to the tree for several years. The male and 

 female catkins are on separate trees : the males are 6 or 7 in a cluster, pe- 

 dunculate, terminal, yellow, and oval, with numerous scales ; imbricated, long, 

 and recurved at the points : the female catkins are oval, with numerous 

 imbricated wedge-shaped scales, with narrowed oblong brittle points ; and 

 they are produced at the ends of the branches, where they look at first sight 

 like an unnatural thickening of the leaves. The cones, when fully ripe, are 

 globular, from Sin. to 4 in. in diameter, and of a dark brown colour. The 

 scales are deciduous, and easily detached. The seeds are 2 to each scale, 

 wedge-shaped, and very large, being more than 1 in. long, with a thick hard 

 shell surrounding an eatable kernel : wings short and obsolete. The male 

 tree has its leaves somewhat differently shaped from those of the female tree, 

 and very much resembling those of A. brasiliana in shape, though of a dif- 

 ferent texture and 

 colour. The fol- 

 lowing interesting 

 description of this 

 remarkable tree is 

 from Poeppig's Tra- 

 vels in the Peruvian 

 Andes, as quoted in 

 the Companion to 

 the Botanical Mag- 

 azine : "When we 

 | arrived at the first 

 araucarias, the sun 

 had just set: still 

 some time remained 

 for their examina- 

 tion. What first 

 struck our atten- 

 tion were, the thick 

 roots of these trees, 



which lie spread over the stony and 

 nearly naked soil, like gigantic serpents, 

 2 ft. or 3 ft. in thickness : they are 

 clothed with a rough bark, similar to 

 that which invests the lofty pillar-like 

 trunks of from 50 ft. to 100 ft. in height. 



The crown of foliage occupies only about the upper quarter of the stem, and 

 resembles a large depressed cone. The lower branches, eight or twelve in 

 number, form a circle round the trunk : they diminish till they are but four or 

 six in a ring, and are of most regular formation, all spreading out horizontally, 

 and bending upwards only at their tips. They are thickly invested with leaves 

 that cover them like scales, and are sharp-pointed, above an inch broad, and 

 of such a hard and woody texture, that it requires a sharp knife to sever them 



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