130 



PAXTON'S FLOWER GARDEN. 



is a native of the mountains of Patagonia, where it was found by Mr. William Lobb, forming a beautiful tree 30 feet 

 high. The country in which it grows is more cold and stormy than any part of Great Britain, as is shown by the 

 following account given of it by Mr. Lobb in one of his letters to Messrs. Veitch :— 



" During my absence I visited a great part of Chiloe, most of the islands in the Archipelago, and the coast of 

 Patagonia for about 140 miles. I went up the Corcobado, Caylin, Alman, Comau, Reloncavi, and other places on the 

 coast, frequently making excursions from the level of the sea to the line of perpetual snow. These bays generally run to 

 the base of the central ridge of the Andes, and the rivers take their rise much further back in the interior. The whole 

 country, from the Andes to the sea, is formed of a succession of ridges of mountains gradually rising from the sea to the 

 central ridge. The whole is thickly wooded from the base to the snow line. Ascending the Andes of Comau, I observed 

 from the water to a considerable elevation the forest is composed of a variety of trees, and a sort of cane so thickly 

 matted together that it formed almost an impenetrable jungle. Further up, amongst the melting snows, vegetation 

 becomes so much stunted in growth, that the trees, seen below 100 feet high and 0 feet in diameter, only attain the 

 height of 6 inches. 



" On reaching the summit no vegetation exists — nothing but scattered barren rocks which appear to rise amongst the 

 snow, which is 30 feet in depth, and frozen so hard that on walking over it the foot makes but a slight impression. 



" To the east, as far as the eye can command, it appears perfectly level. To the south, one sees the central ridge of 

 the Andes stretching along for an immense distance, and covered with perpetual snow. To the west, the whole of the 

 islands, from Guaytecas to the extent of the Archipelago, is evenly and distinctly to be seen. 



" A little below this elevation the scenery is also singular and grand. Rocky precipices stand like perpendicular 

 walls from 200 feet to 300 feet in height, over which roll the waters from the melting snows, which appear to the eye like 

 lines of silver. Sometimes these waters rush down with such force, that rocks of many tons in weight are precipitated 

 from their lofty stations to the depth of 2000 feet. In the forest below everything appears calm and tranquil ; 

 scarcely the sound of an animal is heard ; sometimes a few butterflies and beetles meet the eye, but not a house or 

 human being is seen. On the sandy tracts near the rivers, the lion or puma is frequently to be met with ; but this 

 animal is perfectly harmless if not attacked." 



It is from this wild and uninhabited country that many of the fine plants raised by Messrs. Veitch were obtained, 

 and among them the Saxe-Gothcea, Podocarpus nubigena, Fitz-Roya patagonica, and Libocedrus teiragona. Of these he 

 writes thus : — 



"The two last (Fitz-Roya and Libocedrus) I never saw below the snow line. The former inhabits the rocky 

 precipices, and the latter the swampy places between the mountains. The first grows to an enormous size, particularly 

 about the winter snow line, where I have seen trees upwards of 100 feet high, and more than 8 feet in diameter. It may 

 be traced from this elevation to the perpetual snows, where it is not more than 4 inches in height. With these grow the 

 Yews (Saxe-GotJuea and Podocarpus nubigena J, which are beautiful evergreen trees, and, as well as the others, afford 

 excellent timber." 



Saxe- Gothtea may be described as a genus with the male flowers of a Podocarp, the females of a Dammar, the fruit of a 

 Juniper, the seed of a Dacrydium, and the habit of a Yew. Its fleshy fruit, composed of consolidated scales, enclosing 

 nut-like seed, and forming what is technically called a Galbulus, places it near Juniperus, from which it more especially 

 differs in its anthers not being peltate, nor its fruit composed of a single whorl of perfect scales, and in its ovule having 

 two integuments instead of one. In the last respect it approaches Podocarpus, and especially Dacrydium ; but the 

 exterior integument of the seed is a ragged abortive membrane, enveloping the base only of the seed, instead of a well- 

 defined cup. In a memorandum in my possession, by Sir William Hooker, I find this distinguished botanist comparing 

 Saxe-Gothtea to a Podocarp with the flowers in a cone — a view which he was probably led to take by the condition of the 

 ovule, and which may be regarded as the most philosophical mode of understanding the nature of this singular genus ; to 

 which Nageia may be said to be a slight approach, and which is not distinguishable by habit from a Podocarp. 



In its systematic relations Saxe-Gothrea possesses great interest, forming as it does a direct transition from the one- 

 flowered Taxads to the true imbricated Conifers, without, however, breaking down the boundary between those orders, 

 as I understand them, but rather confirming the propriety of limiting the Coniferous order to those genera which really 

 bear cones instead of single naked seeds. In the language of some naturalists, Saxe-Gothsea would be called an 

 osculant genus between Taxads and Conifers. 



The leaves of this plant have altogether the size and general appearance of the English Yew, Taxus baccata ; but 

 they are glaucous underneath, except upon the midrib and two nai'row stripes within the edges, which are pale green. 

 The male flowers consist of spikes appearing at the ends of the branches, in a raceme more or less elongated. These 

 spikes (fig. 1) grow from within a few concave acute scales, which form a kind of involucre at the base. Each male is a 

 solitary membranous anther, with a lanceolate, acuminate, reflexed appendage, and a pair of parallel cells opening 

 longitudinally. The female flowers form a small roundish, pedunculated, terminal, scaly imbricated cone. The 

 scales are fleshy, firm, lanceolate, and contracted at their base, where they unite into a solid centre. All appear to be 

 fertile, and to bear in a niche in the middle, where the contraction is, a single inverted ovule (fig. 3). The ovule is 

 globular, with two integuments beyond the nucleus ; the outer integument is loose and thin, and wraps round the ovule 

 in such a way that its two edges cannot meet on the under side of the ovule ; the second integument is firm and fleshy ; 

 the nucleus is flask-shaped, and protrudes a fungous circular expansion through the foramen. The fruit (fig. 4) is 



