226 ARAUCARINEE 
ARAUCARIAS 
(OF THE NATURAL ORDER CONIFERZ, oF THE 
FAMILY PINACE, oF THE TRIBE ARAUCA- 
RINE) 
The prudent will observe what passions reign 
In various plants, . : 
Ovib. 
In such strains as these have the poetical world 
written, from the days of Ovid and onward, upon the 
sensibilities of plant life. Had some stray versifiers 
turned their minstrel attention towards the subject 
of the sensibilities of human feelings, and how these 
feelings upon occasions have been displayed towards 
certain representatives of the tree world, what a 
telling text might they not have found to discourse 
upon from the unamiabilities of the Araucaria Im- 
bricata, or Puzzle Monkey, and what rules for guidance 
might they not have laid down, not only for the 
prudent, but for even the thick-skinned and venture- 
some to observe. 
Our remarks upon this particular tribe of trees— 
as far as they more immediately concern our little 
sea-girt island—are practically reduced to a mono- 
logue upon that old-established and familiar friend, 
which men, women, and children, ofttimes from 
tangible testimonies derived from various methods of 
experiment, have acquired the habit of addressing as 
the Puzzle Monkey, but which, when given due titular 
rank, should assume and have conferred upon it the 
more dignified name of Araucaria Imbricata. 
There are other, Australasian, Araucarias, and very 
striking-looking trees they are too, in their queer 
way, but they do not flourish under the more chilly 
conditions of our out-of-door situations. 
