6 
PINETUM BRITANNICUM. 
joined them as pupils and associates in their labours—the first as an artist, the second as a botanist. On 
these expeditions they met with the A rancaria imbricata, which it was part of their mission to look for. I n 
August 1785, a fire broke out in their house, which destroyed all their journals and collections; and they 
then undertook journeys through the forests of Muna, Pillao, and Chacahursi, examining new species of 
Cinchona. On April 1, 1788, taking leave of their companions Pulgar and Tafalla, they sailed from 
Callao, and reached Cadiz in September, when they commenced the publication of their great work the 
“ Flora Peruviana” (Markham, “ Travels in Peru and India,” p. 32). Don Pavon, in his account of the 
A raucaria imbricata, says :— 
“ In the month of September 1782, I left, for some time, my companion Don Hippolito Ruiz, and visited the mountains named Caramavida 
and Naguelbuta, belonging to the Llanista, Peguen, and Araucano Indians. I spared neither pains nor expense in fulfilling the objects of my 
mission, and amongst many plants which were the result of my two months’ excursion, I found in flower and fruit the tree which I was about to 
describe. 
“ The chain or Cordillera of the Andes offers to the view, in general, a rocky soil, and in parts wet and boggy, on account of the abundance of 
rain and snow which fall in these regions, similar to many provinces of Spain. There are to be seen large forests of this tree, which rises to the 
height of 150 feet.” 
In 1795, Captain Vancouver touched on the coast of Chili; and Mr Menzies, who accompanied the 
expedition, procured cones, and sowed some of their seeds on board the ship, and brought home living 
plants, which he presented to Sir Joseph Banks, who planted one of them in his own garden at Spring 
Grove, and sent the others to Kew, where one (the oldest, though far from the largest) still survives. From 
this circumstance the tree was called at first in England “ Sir Joseph Banks Pine.” 
The next author who added to our stock of original information on the subject was Poeppig, afterwards 
Professor of Botany in Leipzig. He was sent out to explore and collect plants in South America by a German 
Botanical Society, and the following brief summary of his labours, contained in a letter 'to the late Sir W. 
Hooker (see Hooker’s “ Journal of Botany,” i. p. 380), will give the reader a general idea of him and his 
work. Dr Poeppig says :— 
“ I crossed South America, from Peru to Para, on the Amazon, but I had so hard a stand that I could not advise another to follow that 
track. Be it understood that I was inured by long custom and seasoned to every hardship, that I spoke rather fluently the language of the Incas 
-—and yet I almost abandoned the task ! Amidst savages and millions of mosquitos—widely separated from any civilized being — quite solitary— 
the only European in an immense province—without shoes and without clothes — often without a monkey to dine upon — unkindly treated by petty 
authorities, though protected by the far distant government of Lima—once even a kind of prisoner for the space of three months—under all these 
privations, thank God, I did not flag; but, my resolution rising in proportion as my difficulties increased, I even lived in the thickest wilderness of 
Maynas nearly eighteen months, working day and night, though friendless and quite limited to my own personal resources, whether as regarded my 
body or mind. The whole cost for five years to the Society which sent me out only amounted to 4500 German dollars, which have been refunded 
to them by collections on which they have themselves fixed the value, so that not a groat remains unpaid; and they had besides a profit of 10 per 
cent, allowed; nevertheless, an immense botanical collection remained to me (5500 species, exclusive of the lower cryptogamic orders), and so many 
well prepared animals, that I have been enabled to make liberal presents to our public collections. The Society received 1750 species of plants, 
ten samples of each = 17,500, besides many hundred birds and quadrupeds. A great number of Chilian plants have been diffused upon the 
Continent that were originally reared from my seeds, as Francoa, which may be seen growing in the gardens and churchyards of our most secluded 
villages, Tetilla, Nassauvia, Pay a, and several species of Escallonia. The only specimens of Araucaria chilensis {imbricata) which exist on the 
Continent (I think you do not possess that king of trees ?) are now here (Leipzig), raised from seeds which I gathered in the wild country of the 
Pichuenches among a thousand dangers. Six of these have survived the perils of their early growth, and are nearly 2 feet high, Avhile forty or 
more have successively died. Journals, with descriptions made on the spot, of 2300 species of plants ; others on zoology, partly printed in Lroriep 
(i.e., Lrorieps Notizen aus d. Geb., d. Natur. und Heilk.); others containing remarks and researches of a more genial kind; 200 sheets of 
drawings, among which are all the Chilian Orchidece and the most splendid Peruvian forms ; also the materials for a monograph of the tropical 
American Aroidece (these of colossal dimensions), have safely reached Europe, and surround me at the present moment. The “ Travels ” are 
printing; the first number of my “ Novee Species Plantarum,” edited in company with Endlicher of Vienna, will also soon be out, and I send a 
fragment of it along with the plants. Thus you see how much a man may work, provided he has nothing else to do but to work.” 
The scientific history of the species need not detain us long. Its first describerwas the Abbe Molina, 
who was writing his “ Civil and Natural History of Chili ” (published in 1782) at the time that Dendariarena 
was making his experiments; and he described it under the name Pinus Araucaria, shewing a keener 
appreciation of its affinities than we should perhaps have looked for at that date. Next, Don Pavon, 
treating it more critically, recognized it as belonging to a new species of Conifer, which he called Araucaria, 
and gave the species the name which it still bears. He had, previously to his publication, however, sent* 
specimens to France to the care of Dombey, his former fellow traveller, and that gentleman shewed it to 
two of the chief botanists in Paris at the time—Jussieu and Lamarck. Jussieu made no alteration on 
Pavon’s 
