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A VEGETABLE SHAFT. 



other group of plants, under strange and novel forms. The shape of 

 those trees is generally fusiform and pyramidal ; their leaves are some- 

 times extraordinarily small, sometimes large and flattened. Many are 

 of great size ; none, however, attaining the gigantic proportions of the 

 celebrated columnar Pine of New Caledonia, which Cook's companions 

 mistook for a colossal mass of basaltic pillars, and which Moore, like 



1. Kavenala Madagascariensis. 2. Heritiera argentea. 3. Tanghin. 



a true son of industrious Albion, compared to an enormous factory- 

 chimney. This tree exceeds 160 feet in height, and its ramifications, 

 all of the same height, radiate regularly around its trunk, from the 

 base even to the summit. 



I have now to ask the reader's companionship on an excursion 



