No. 127. 
Araucaria Cunninghamii, Ait. 
Richmond River or Hoop Pine. 
(Family CONI FERAE.) 
Botanical description. —Genus, Araucaria, A. L. cle Jussieu, Genera Plantarum, 
413 (1789). 
Flowers dioecious or rarely monoecious, the amenta terminal. 
Male amenta cylindrical ; stamens numerous, spirally imbricated, contracted at the base, with an 
ovate or lanceolate incurved scale-like apex j anther cells 6 to 20, in 2 rows. 
Females with a single reflexed ovule within each scale. 
Fruit-cones large, ovoid or globular, the scales very numerous, closely imbricate, the margins 
usually attenuated into wings at the base, the apex thickened and woody, with a raised 
transverse line often produced into a lanceolate or pungent point. 
Seeds flattened, obovoid-oblong, not winged, adnate to the scale at the base, free at the apex. 
Embryo, with 2 cotyledons, sometimes deeply divided so as to appear to be 4. 
Trees often very lofty, the branches almost verticillate. 
Leaves in close spires, flat or on sterile branches vertically compressed, short and rigidly acicular 
or lanceolate and longer, pungent pointed or rarely obtuse, with a prominent midrib. 
Fruit-cones in some species attaining a very large size. (B.F1. vi, 242.) 
Botanical description. —Species, A. Cunninghamii, Ait., in Sweet, Hort. Brit., 475. 
* A tree with a pyramidal or somewhat flattened head, attaining in some situations 150 to 200 
feet, in others remaining much smaller. 
Leaves crowded in dense spires, rigidly acicular and very acute, those of the barren brandies 
often spreading, straight, vertically compressed, with the dorsal rib decurrent and ] to f inch 
long, those of the flowering branches from a broad adnate base triquetrous or lanceolate, 
incurved and rather shorteV. 
Male amenta sessile, cylindrical, very dense, 2 to 3 inches long and 3 to 4 lines diameter, the 
scale-like apex of the stamens ovate-rhomboidal and acute. 
Fruit-cones ovoid, about 3 inches long and 2 inches diameter, the scales (including their marginal 
wings) broadly cuneate, the broad hard apex terminating in a lanceolate spreading or 
recurved rigid point—Parlat. in DC. Prod, xvi, ii, 372. (B.F1. vi, 243.) 
Botanical Name. — Araucaria, from Araucanos, the name of one of these 
Pines ( A. imbricata ) in Chili; Cunninghamii, after Allan Cunningham, who held 
the appointment of King’s Botanist in Australia, and whose services to Australian 
botany and geographical exploration are alike immortal. An obelisk to his memory 
is to be seen in the Sydney Botanic Gardens, of which he was at one time Superin¬ 
tendent. 
