The Queensland Naturalist. 
Jan., 1921 
II6 
principally of closely packed cells (tracheids,) , which are 
closed at each end and whose walls are pierced by bordered 
pits. The long, open vessels which are present in the 
highest group of plants, the angiosperms, which comprise 
our common Australian trees such as eucalypts, cedar, 
Queensland beech, tfec., are absent in the wood of pines. 
This fact is of considerable importance, as it enables one 
to determine whether a sample of an unknown wood is 
that of a conifer or an angiosperni ; all coiinuercial timbers 
belong to one of these two groups. This test is applied by 
cutting a smooth surface on the cut or sawn end of the 
timber with a sharp penknife, and examining it with a lens. 
The presence of “pores’" (the long vessels in transverse 
section) indicates that the timber is that of an angiosperni; 
their absence shows that it is the timber of a conifer. The 
peculiarities in the microscopic structure of woods are of 
great value to the fossil botanist, as they furnish him with 
a fairly reliable means of classification in many cases. 
The genus Araucaria contains 14 living species. There 
are 2 in Eastern Australia. Araucaria Citnninghamiij the 
hoop pine, is found as far South as the Hastings River in 
New South Wales, in Queensland North and South, and 
extending about 100 miles inland as at the Bunya Moun- 
tains, and in New Guinea. The bunya pine, Araucaria 
Bidwilli, is much more limited in distribution ; it is confined 
to the Bunya IMountains and parts of the Blackall Range 
in Southern Queensland. The other species are distributed 
as under: 1 on Norfolk Island.. 8 in New Caledonia, 1 in 
Chili, 1 in Bolivia, and 1 in Brazil. It is remarkable that 
the genus at the present day is confined to the Southern 
Hemisphere and many of the species limited to small areas 
or to small islands. 
Among living trees the Araucaria^^ are almost unrivalled 
in antiquity. To the fossil botanist they are the survivors 
of a great and ancient family often referred to as the 
araucarian pines. Their antecedents have been traced back 
as far as the Carboiiiferous period in the geological re<*ord. 
Trees very closely reseml)ling living Araucarias, and termed 
by the generic name Araucarites, were abundant and widely 
spread over the woild in the Jurassic and Cretaceous 
systems, and the family was still prevalent in the floras of 
the Northern Hemisphere in earlier Tertiary times. 
C^omparing the present distrilmtion of the Araucarian 
Pines with that of the geological ])ast. it is evident that the 
living trees are representatives of a declining race, and 
it would seem that their wonderful symmetry and grace- 
