AEAUCAEIA IMBEICATA. 



193 



Beyond the brief outline sketched above, the limits of the geogra- 

 phical range of Araucaria imbricata are but imperfectly known. 

 According to Professor Poeppig, it is found in the northernmost 

 portion of its habitat, only on the higher slopes of the Andes, and. 

 always in proximity to the snow line, forming a belt of forest of from 

 1,500 to 2,000 feet of elevation immediately below it. Further south 

 it descends to a lower elevation, the area over which it is spread 

 gradually widening till it approaches the ocean at its southern limit. 



Araucaria imbricata was dis- 

 covered in 1780, by Don Fran- 

 cisco Dendariarena, a Spaniard 

 who was at that time officially 

 employed to ascertain if any 

 timber suitable for ship-build- 

 ing was procurable in southern 

 Chili.* It was also found very 

 shortly afterwards by Drs. Euiz 

 and Pavon, two Spanish botanists, 

 who went out to Peru in 1777, 

 to investigate the forests of that 

 country, with the special object 

 of collecting information respect- 

 ing the Cinchona or Peruvian 

 Bark, and who subsequently ex- 

 tended their explorations further 

 south. They were accompanied 

 by a French gentleman, named 

 Dombey, but he returned to 

 Europe after a short stay, and 

 before Euiz and Pavon sailed 

 for Chili. It was to him that 

 Euiz and Pavon sent the first 

 dried specimens of the Arau- 

 caria received in Europe, and by him these were submitted to the 

 eminent botanist Lamark, who named the tree Dombeya chilensis, 

 and thus Dombey's name become associated with the synonymy of 

 the tree. In 1795, Captain Vancouver reached the coast of Chili, 

 when Mr. Archibald Menzies, who accompanied him in the capacity 

 of botanist, procured some cones and seeds, and also some young 

 plants, which he succeeded in bringing home alive. He presented these 

 to Sir Joseph Banks, who planted one in his own garden, and sen^ 

 the others to the Eoyal Gardens, at Kew. One of the Kew plants 

 still "survives, and it is therefore the oldest, although not the largest 

 Araucaria in Great Britain. For many years the Araucaria continued 

 * Loudon, Arb. et FruL, p. .2436. 



Fig. 45.— Ovule-bearing catkin of Araucaria 

 imbricata. Natural size. 



