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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



some good collections of plants for the Coimbra Garden. On my 

 visiting one of the splendid estates, the proprietor, Sefior Antonio 

 Borges da Camara, showed me large pieces of wood which evidently 

 belonged to a coniferous tree, and which, according to his statement, had 

 been dug out from a depth of 100 metres. Whether this statement be 

 correct I cannot warrant; possibly 50 metres will do just as well. It was 

 at my instigation that slabs of this wood were sent to the Kew Museum 

 in order to solve the question as to the species. As you are aware, only 

 one coniferous plant is now native to that group of islands — Juni- 

 perus brevifolia ; but that species is known there in the form of a tall 

 shrub, but never as a large tree from which such large wood specimens 

 as that in question could have been obtained. Shortly after my 

 return to Coimbra I visited the convent of Bussaco, which is situated 

 in the midst of a beautiful forest, partly composed of splendid growths 

 of Cupressus glauca (lusitanica) — some stems measuring 14 feet in cir- 

 cumference. Now the old monks' Chronica state that this ' Cedro ' 

 was introduced (by seeds) to Bussaco in 1622 — not from Goa, as many 

 people think, but from the Azores, where this species is actually not 

 to be met with but in small cultivated specimens. Volcanic eruptions 

 have often taken place in those islands, and it is, perhaps, not so very 

 far off to suppose that this species, Cupressus glauca, was originally an 

 Azorean one, destroyed there, centuries ago, by volcanic forces. 

 This hypothesis, based, I admit, on very slight foundation, seems at 

 least quite as possible as that the endemic Juniperus brevifolia should 

 once have built up gigantic trees. 



"As to the origin of the ' Cedro de Goa,' Sir Joseph Hooker and 

 Professor Oliver think, as Professor Wilkomm states in the Wiener 

 Ittustrirte Garten Zeitung (1890, 3rd part), that C. glauca is only a 

 variety of C. torulosa, a North Indian species, which would settle 

 the question as to its origin from Goa. I formerly questioned several 

 persons who had resided at Goa, but was informed by them that they 

 had never met that tree there. I have another supposition still. 

 The Jesuits, when going from Portugal to Goa, may well have intro- 

 duced there (by seeds) the Cupressus sempervirens, very common in 

 the South of Europe, and liable, as I observed during my long stay 

 there, to very great variations. Once established in India, it may 

 have given rise to still greater variation, and finally been reintroduced 

 to Portugal as a new species. 



"In conclusion, I still believe that the slab of wood from the 

 Azores belongs to Cupressus glauca. 1 ' 



Mr. Jackson has been good enough to compare for me the 

 Azorean slab in question with wood of undoubted G. sempervirens, 

 and finds no difference between them save what may be accounted 

 for by age and exposure. Mr. Jackson adds that the wood is 

 certainly not that of a Juniper. It may, then, I think, be 



