THE CYCAS FAMILY. 



189 



now (1870) 4 feet high, with a girth of 3 feet 11 inches; 

 thus growing 3 feet in 48 years, which gives | of an inch 

 yearly. It has several times produced male cones 2 feet in 

 length. 



Zamia {Macrozamid) Denisoniana. A native of New South 

 Wales. Although originally known as a low plant, it has 

 been seen in the Richmond River district 30 or 40 feet 

 high ; according to the observed rate of growth, such 

 plants cannot be less than five hundred years of age. It has 

 long slender leaves, like palms, which are used in Roman 

 Catholic churches in Australia on Palm Sunday. An allied 

 species, M. Fraseri, is foun^ in Western Australia ; it has a 

 thick trunk, often 8 or 10 feet high. Several remarkable 

 species have lately been discovered in Queensland, one 

 60 feet in height.* About the year 1802, during Captain 

 Flinders' voyage, a leaf of a plant was gathered at Rock- 

 ingham Bay which puzzled the most eminent botanists, up to 

 the rediscovery of the plant, in 1862, by Mr. Walter Hill, 

 who sent specimens and living plants of it to Kew. It dif- 

 fers from all the rest of the family in having leaves twice- 

 winged (bipinnate), very much resembling some species of 

 the Fern genus Marattia ; it has proved to be a new genus, 

 and has received the name of Bowenia spectahilis. There 

 are several species of the family found in Mexico and Central 

 America, but none extending south of the equator. 



Dion edule, a native of Mexico, is a curious plant, old 

 plants of it having stems 3 — 4 feet high, with leaves of 

 equal length, in which the pinnse are set very close, even 

 imbricate, and being very hard and stiff, and of a bluish colour, 

 give the feeling and appearance of metal. Its seeds are eaten. 



Ceratozamia is another genus of the family, chiefly differing 

 by the scales of the cone being two-horned, and the foot- 

 stalks of the leaves prickly, as in C. Mexicana. 



Zamia integrifolia and Z. furfuracea. The first, native of 



* Authority, Mr. Walter Hill, director of the Brisbane Botanic 

 Garden. 



