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It is, too, very remarkable that the bunya tree, according to the natives, is nowhere to be met with but in these parts; it is, however, there is no doubt, a species of the araucaria genus, well known in South America; the timber, when green, is white, fine grained and very tough, but whether it retains these qualities when dry, has not yet been determined.
The Lepidodendra were shrubs and trees which put one more in mind of an Araucaria than of any other familiar plant; and the ends of the fruiting branches were terminated by cones, or catkins, somewhat like the bodies so named in a fir, or a willow.
There are hedges of pittosporum, arbors veiled by passion-flowers, and two of that most beautiful of all living trees, the araucaria, or Norfolk Island pine, one specimen being some eighty feet high, and said to be the tallest north of the equator.
Hooker, that there are Carboniferous plants which appear to be generically identical with some now living; that the cone of the Oolitic 'Araucaria' is hardly distinguishable from that of an existing species; that a true 'Pinus' appears in the Purbecks, and a 'Juglans' in the Chalk; while, from the Bagshot Sands, a 'Banksia', the wood of which is not distinguishable from that of species now living in Australia, had been obtained.
They have no bees nor honey-making insects, but they make much use of a sweet gum that oozes from a coniferous plant, not unlike the araucaria. Their soil teems also with esculent roots and vegetables, which it is the aim of their culture to improve and vary to the utmost.
Hooker, that there are Carboniferous plants which appear to be generically identical with some now living; that the cone of the Oolitic Araucaria is hardly distinguishable from that of an existing species; that a true Pinus appears in the Purbecks and a Juglans in the Chalk; while, from the Bagshot Sands, a Banksia, the wood of which is not distinguishable from that of species now living in Australia, had been obtained.
That I do not regret, for the mayor's wife and I are not sympathetic; but when Xavier uproots my pet araucaria and bears it across the garden into the conservatory I protest at the top of my voice. Little Victor in his night-clothes runs to the window, enormously amused at the parabolic flight without reason, for it is too dark to see the grapnel, of my prized tree.
That particular tree was concluded to be an araucaria, a species now found in Norfolk Island, in the South Sea, and in a few other remote situations. The coniferae of this era form the dawn of dicotyledenous trees, of which they may be said to be the simplest type, and to which, it has already been noticed, the lepidodendra are a link from the monocotyledons.
There is also much silicified wood, both common dicotyledonous and coniferous: a section of one specimen in the direction of the medullary rays has, as I am informed by Mr. R. Brown, the discs in a double row placed alternately, and not opposite as in the true Araucaria.
It is, too, very remarkable that the bunya tree, according to the natives, is nowhere to be met with but in these parts; it is, however, there is no doubt, a species of the araucaria genus, well known in South America; the timber, when green, is white, fine grained and very tough, but whether it retains these qualities when dry, has not yet been determined.
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