A. BRACHYPHYLLA AND HOMOLEPIS 81 
intricacies of this trio of trees, in all its ramifications 
and variations, there is still another upstart, so far 
unmentioned by us, to compete with, and it is called 
the Umbellata. This is a tree with leaves like the 
Brachyphylla and Homolepis, and with cones of the 
colour and substance of the A. Firma; in short, it 
reads as a halfway house between the two, and this 
is what probably spells its true story of an hybrid 
history. 
The queries, then, which trouble the mind of the 
more unsophisticated, and the questions_that present 
themselves to the would-be unravellers of this tangle, 
seem to be very much after this pattern : 
(1) Are the Brachyphylla and Homolepis one and 
the same tree ? 
Some authorities of our day have answered to this 
“No,” distinctly if not quite emphatically, but still 
“No.” They maintain that certain slight obscure 
but sufficient differences exist between them. They 
quote the fact that the different positions of the resin 
ducts substantiates their case. From this view 
E. H. Wilson, after a recent journey to their native 
country, dissents. It is true that he does not refer 
to these resin-duct differences, but he assuredly saves 
the situation for some of us and simplifies the matter 
for those who flounder in the sea of doubt. There 
are many to whom resin ducts and their position are 
but the by-play of a hidden mystery. 
He (Wilson) further tells us that any little varia- 
tions of form or inconsistencies of habit are traits 
of character, traceable to those inconsistencies of age 
that all life, human and plant, is liable to, and this 
is an arrival at opinion of natural progression that all 
ethose in the sere and yellow are easily able to com- 
prehend, and that all those in the green of youth are 
too ready to jump at ribald conclusions upon, without 
any further encouragement from their seniors. 
