E. A. Newell Arher — Large Silicijied Tree from Tasmania. 7 



ii. — cupbessinoxyloi^ hookebi, sp. nov., a labge silicified 

 Tree frobi Tasmania. 



By E. A. Newell Arber, M.A., F.L.S., F.G.S., Trinity College, Cambridge 

 University Demonstrator in Paleobotany. 



(PLATE I.) 



ONE of the most striking objects exhibited in the Gallery of 

 Fossil Plant remains in the Geological Department of the 

 British Museum (Natural History) is a large trunk of a Coniferous 

 tree from Tasmania, of which a photograph is reproduced on Plate I. 

 This specimen ^ is one of the largest in the gallery, being nearly nine 

 feet in height, and three feet in diameter. The woody tissues are in 

 excellent preservation, the specimen being silicified, and in part 

 opalized. 



The history of this tree is an interesting one. It was discovered, 

 apparently early in the last century, on the estate of a Mr. Eichard 

 Barker at Macquarie Plains, New Norfolk, Tasmania. When found, 

 the tree was embedded in an upright position in a basaltic lava. 

 Although silicified wood is of common occurrence in that neighbour- 

 hood, the large size of the trunk— the specimen being then at least 

 three feet longer than at present — appears to have created general 

 interest. Among others. Sir Joseph (then Mr.) Hooker, while on 

 a voyage of discovery in the Southern seas in H.M.S. "Erebus," 

 visited the locality to examine this fossil. Sir Joseph Hooker- con- 

 tributed a most interesting description of the specimen to the first 

 volume of the Tasmanian Journal of Natural Science, published in 

 1842, from which the following quotation is taken : — " One of the 

 most remarkable circumstances connected both with the Geology and 

 Botany of Tasmania, is the occurrence of vast quantities of silicified 

 wood, either exposed on the plains, or imbedded in rocks both of 

 igneous and aqueous formations. Those of the former, in particular, 

 are the most striking, from their singular beauty, and the very perfect 

 manner in which the structure of the living wood is retained. Soon 

 after my arrival in this Colony, magnificent specimens of a fossil 

 tree were shown me, dug out of a volcanic rock, and which, as far 

 as my memory serves me, were unequalled even in what I had seen 

 of the rich collection of Brown." ^ 



A few years later the tree was brought to England and exhibited 

 in the Tasmanian Court of the Great Exhibition of 1851.* At the 

 close of the Exhibition it was presented to the British Museum by 

 the Tasmanian Commissioners, but owing to the large size of the 



1 Registered number, V. 332. A smaller specimen (V. 9,606) of a similar tree from 

 the same locality is exhibited side by side with that described here. 



2 Hooker : Tasmanian Journ. Nat. Sci., vol. i (1842), p. 24. 



3 Eobert BroAvn (1773-1858), first Keeper of Botany at the British Museum, 

 gathered together a large collection of petrified woods from different parts of the 

 world. Most of these specimens are now incorporated with the plant collections m 

 the Geological Department of the British Museum. . 



4 Official Catalogue, Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations, 

 1851, vol. ii, p. 999 (No. 348). 



