162 



PAXTON'S FLOWER GARDEN. 



Araucaria Cookii. R. Brown. A very large greenhouse Coniferous tree from New 

 Caledonia. Introduced by Mr. C. Moore. 



In the year 1 850 Mr. Charles Moore, the Superintendent of the Botanic Garden, Sydney, was enabled to pay a short 

 visit to New Caledonia and the neighbouring islands of the South Pacific, in H.M.S. " Havannah ;" and, notwithstanding 

 many difficulties, succeeded, through the very great kindness of Captain Erskine, in collecting and bringing safe to Sydney 

 a considerable number of very valuable plants, seeds, and specimens. Some of them have been brought to England 

 by Captain Jones, of the " St. George" merchantman ; and among them the plant at the head of this article, which grows 

 abundantly on the islands of Aniteura, New Hebrides, and New Caledonia. In a memorandum that accompanied the 

 plant received by the Society, Mr. Moore remarks that the tree is "apparently distinct from A. excelsa. It differs from 

 that species in having a more compact habit when old, and in being less rigid and more graceful when young, 

 in the scales of the cone having a longer and more reflexed mucro, and in their gibbous, not wedge-shaped 

 form, as in A. excelsa. In the island of Aniteura this plant has become scarce, the English traders having cut 

 it down for ships' spars. I only saw one plant, and this was 'tabooed,'' or rendered sacred, by the natives; but 

 in New Caledonia, on the south-east coast, whole forests composed of this alone were observed. In such situations the tops 

 are not unlike basaltic columns, and were actually taken for such by the naturalists who accompanied Cook. A coral reef 

 connects the Isle of Pines with that part." Mr. Moore adds, that it is " singular enough the first plant of this, noticed by 

 Cook (described by that navigator, in his account of New Caledonia, ' as an elevation like a tower '), still stands, and is in a 

 flourishing condition. Its appearance now is exactly that of a well-proportioned factory chimney of great height. 

 The cone shows how very distinct this is from either A. excelsa or Cunninghamii. In addition to the greater 

 length of the reflexed appendages on the scales of A. Cookii, to which Mr. Moore has drawn attention, it is to 

 be observed that the scales themselves do not terminate in a hard, woody, truncated extremity, as in those two 

 species, but are wholly surrounded by a thin wing ; the effect of which is to destroy the knobby appearance of their cone, 

 and to give it a softness and evenness peculiar to itself." — Journ. of H or t. Soc, vol. vi. 



Calanthe veratrifolia. R. Brown; var. australls {alias C. australis Ilort.) A greenhouse 

 terrestrial Orchid from New Holland, witli white flowers changing to buff. Flowers in September. 

 Reintroduced by Mr. C. Moore, Superintendent of the Botanic Garden, Sydney. 



This plant was originally fouud by the late Allan Cunningham in August 1822 ; whilst on an excursion to the 

 Illawarra, a coast district on the south of Port Jackson, he met with a plant in dark shaded woods, which he introduced 

 to Kew in the following year, considering it a Bletia. It soon afterwards flowered in that collection, and was then 

 ascertained to differ in no material respect from the plant of the Indian Archipelago. Both have been in flower 

 together, and on examination of the two plants, no difference has been discovered, excepting that the Australian 

 plant is not so purely white in the flower as the one from India. Mr. D. Moore of the Glasnevin Gardens, who has 

 recently received live plants from his brother, is of opinion that " the spur is shorter, and the flowers more compact than 

 those of C. veratrifolia. The leaves are also shorter and the plant is hardier, having stood in a cool greenhouse all the 

 season and flowered nicely." We cannot however say that the flowers with which Mr. Moore has favoured us exhibit 

 any appreciable structural difference, and we must therefore continue to leave the plant as a mere geographical variety. 



Cotoneaster thymifolia (/ Gardens. A small prostrate evergreen hardy shrub from 

 Gossain Than. Belongs to Appleworts (Pomacea). Introduced from France. (Fig. 192.) 



It is certain that this curious little evergreen shrub is a mere variety of Cotoneaster microphylla, next to 



C. rotundifolia, the most beautiful of the Indian 

 Cotoneasters. There appears to be no distinction 

 between the two, nor any difference beyond size. 

 C. tliymifolia is not half the size of C- micro- 

 phylla, lies flat on the ground like thyme itself, 

 or if upon a stone hardly raises its head above the 

 surface ; its leaves are not more than a quarter 

 the size, and are much narrower in proportion, 

 but they have the same texture, surface, point, 

 and hairiness underneath ; they are not so gene- 

 rally emarginate, though they are sometimes 

 so ; the fruit is much smaller, and so are the 

 petals ; it seems to be identical with the Gossain 

 Than specimens distributed by Dr. Wallich under 

 the number 662 of his Herbarium. For rock- 

 work, or similar places, it is quite a little acqui- 

 sition. For the pui pose of placing it securely on record, we add a short technical phrase which will enable it to be distin- 

 guished, whether as a snecies or mere varietv : — 



