86 POPULAR GEOGRAPHY OF PLANTS. 



rocks of the outer coasts (where this genus chiefly prevails) 

 " thousands of these trees are flung ashore by the waves, 

 and with the Macrocystis and If Urvillaa form along the 

 beach continued masses of vegetable rejectamenta, miles in 

 extent, some yards broad and three feet in depth; the upper 

 edge of this belt of putrefying matter is well in shore, whilst 

 the outer or seaward edge dips into the water, and receives 

 the accumulating wreck from the submarine forests through- 

 out its whole length." 



The resemblance of this Lessonia to a tree is not confined 

 to its outward form, but the internal arrangement of the 

 trunk, when cut across, presents " the curious appearance 

 of concentric elliptical rings, in many respects similar to, 

 though very different from, those of an exogenous trunk, 

 surrounding a lance-shaped pale line, which occupies the 

 broad axis of the compressed stein, without reaching across 

 it." The trunks of the Lessonia which are washed up on 

 shore are not unfrequently mistaken by the ignorant observer 

 for pieces of drift-wood, " and on one occasion no persuasion 

 could prevent the captain of a brig from employing his boat 

 and boat's crew, during two bitterly cold days, in collecting 

 this incombustible weed for fuel \" But however useless as 

 fuel, the trunk " is very usefully employed by the Ganchoes, 



