192 A MANUAL OF THE CONIFEE*. 



wedge-shaped bodies more than an inch long, terminated at top 

 in a curved bract-like appendage. 



Habitat— Chili, on the western slopes of the Andes, from about 

 latitude 36° S. southwards to about latitude 45° S. 



Introduced into England in 1796, by Archibald Menzies, but 

 first discovered about twenty years previous by an officer of the 

 Spanish Navy. 





Mm* 



M ■ ■ ■■•.% 



~'Wlk< - mm ^ 



Fig. 44. — Pollen-bearing catkin of Araucaria imbricata. Natural 6ize. 



The preceding description applies to the Araucaria as usually seen 

 in the parks and gardens of Great Britian. In its native forests, 

 where the trees are frequently much crowded, the lower branches are 

 cast off like those of the Firs and Pines when growing close together, 

 and merely crowns of foliage are left at the tops of the trunks, and 

 these rarely occupying more than the upper third or fourth of their 

 height. The strangeness of the aspect of these trees is increased by 

 the large hedgehog-like globular cones placed at the extremities of the 

 branches. Like the Firs and Pines, their roots spread near and at 

 the surface of the ground, and on the declivities of the mountains, 

 creep over the bare rocks and barren slopes like gigantic serpents, 



