58 



BRITISH EOCENE ELORA. 



'Elora of Bovey, p. 35, stated his opinion that Massalongho's cone is quite different 

 from Araiicaria and very like Sequoia gigantea, though the cone of the latter is formed 

 of at most thirty to thirty-five scales of a perfectly different form (see fig. 12, p. 33). 

 Ettingshansen has recently obtained a second cone from Haring vk'hich is much compressed 

 and imperfect, but the form is seen to be globular and composed of very numerous 

 scales which resemble in form those of A. Cunninghami. There can be little doubt but 

 that all these are immature cones of Araucaria, accidentally severed in some manner 

 from the tree. 



Foliage identical with ours is found very abundantly at Chiavon, Sotzka, and 

 apparently at Monte Colle and Monte Promina. In that from Haring the leaves seem a 

 little less dense and slightly less curved. All these are placed in the lowest stage of 

 the Miocene by Heer, but are usually considered to belong to the Upper Eocene or 

 Oligocene. A much smaller and different form is figured under the name from Bilin, 

 where it is rare, and another from the Miocene of Greenland ; these, however, more 

 nearly agree with quite another Conifer to be described from Mull and from Canna. 

 None of the other references of specimens to this species appear to me to be correct. 



The foliage is distinguishable from that of existing Eutassas, except A. Cunninghami, 

 for in these the articulated adult branchlets are simple and the leaves broader and more 

 imbricated. The only other Coniferse which resemble it are Cryptomeria japonica^ in 

 which the leaves are much longer, straighter, and quit the stem at an angle of about 

 thirty-five degrees, with very numerous and persistent cones ; Athrotaxis selaginoides 

 and Bacrgdium araucarioides, in which the leaves are more imbricated, and Sequoia 

 gigantea. It is, however, only the immature foliage of young plants of the latter which 

 resembles it ; and then the leaves are longer in proportion, less regularly disposed and 

 less curved, and quit the stem at very acute angles, and therefore with their points 

 irregularly overlapping the succeeding row. The cones of Sequoia are in addition small, 

 composed of few scales, and so persistent on the branches that they are almost always 

 found associated with the foliage. 



The distribution of this Araucaria at Bournemouth is very clearly defined, and shows 

 plainly that its habits, when growing in our latitude, did not differ from those it now 

 possesses. No trace of it is met with west of the Pier, in the beds whose floras may be 

 thought, from their characters, to have come from districts farther from the sea ; but east 

 of the Pier it abounds everywhere in company with Fan Palms, Eucalyptus, Aroids, 

 Ferns, &c., and in certain beds of sandy mud of the " Marine series," the branchlets are 

 heaped together in perfect preservation and cross each other in every direction. 



The existing Araucaria Cunninghami forms vast forests on the shores of Moreton 

 Bay, on the alluvial banks of the Brisbane River, and grows in the greatest profusion in 

 the bush forests of the Richmond River. " The trees seem to thrive best near the 

 coast, attaining in such a situation their greatest height, often from 100 to 130 feet, but 

 gradually diminishing in height the farther the trees are inland. It would appear from 



