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42 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland
the tree fresh and green long after most trees have lost their foliage, The time of
flowering is also very late, and this is a point of interest, although the flowers are not
conspicuous or remarkable for size or colour. It is a very hardy tree in England, 1
and seems to be free from all attacks of fungi and insects. Its roots clo not sucker,
which is a point in its favour when planted in towns or in gardens or parks. It
has been freely used as a street tree in Italy, where its dense foliage is an
advantage in the hot summers. It is remarkable how little the foliage is affected
by the hottest and driest seasons, and on this account it might be tried in dry and
hot situations. It thrives fairly well in all soils that are deep and not too compact,
but it will only grow vigorously in deep rich soils, where seedlings will sometimes
attain a height of 12 feet in four or five years. 2 It is propagated by seeds, which
should be sown in spring.
REMARKABLE TREES
The trees in the Kew Gardens have been alluded to as regards their history.
The one which occurs near the Pagoda, in 1903, was 68 feet high and 8 feet 3 inches
in circumference. The old tree, with the branches held together by chains, now
measures (1905) 50 feet high and 13 feet in girth at a foot from the ground, the
narrowest part of the short bole, which branches immediately into three main limbs.
A fourth limb, very large, was blown off some years ago. Not far off is a smaller
tree about 6 feet in girth near the ground; it branches from the base, forming a
wide-spreading low tree.
At Syon, two trees of considerable size are now living, each about 70 feet high ;
one measured in 1903 12^ feet in girth, the other 12 feet. 8
The tree in the Oxford Botanic Garden was 65 feet high by 12 feet 3 inches in
girth in 1903 when measured by Elwes. 4
That in the old Botanic Garden at Cambridge is one of the finest trees in
England, as it has a very symmetrical bole. It measured in 1904, 73 feet high by
ii feet in girth. It is figured in Plate i6. s
We are not acquainted with any large specimens of the Sophora now growing
in Scotland, Ireland, or Wales, though Loudon mentions one at Tyninghame,
Haddingtonshire, 42 feet high, 6 one at Castletown near Dublin 35 feet high, and
one at Oriel Temple, Co. Louth, of the same height.
In France and Germany there are probably larger specimens than in this
country. (A. H.)
1 The Sophora has withstood, without injury, the severest frosts in Perthshire. See pamphlet by Col. II. M. Drummond
Hay, The Comparative Hardihood of Hard-wooded Plants, from Observations madeat Seggieden, Perthshire (1882).
2 Nicholson, in an excellent article on the Sophoras in Woods and Forests, July 30, 1884.
3 One of these is mentioned by Loudon, ii. 565, as being the largest near London, and measured in 1838 57 feet
high and about 9 feet in girth.
4 This is said by Loudon (I.e.) to have been twenty years planted in 1844, though probably this is an error, as it was then
35 feet high.
e London says there were two trees in the garden, both 50 feet high, which had flowered occasionally.
6 There is a splendid Sophora in the grounds at Cobhara Park, Kent, which I measured in 1905, and found to be 85
feet by 10 feet. There is also one in the Tilt Yard at Arundel Castle, 62 feet by 9 feet 6 inches. (H. J. E.)
ARAUCARIA
Araucaria, Jussieu, Gen. PI. 4 13 (1789); Benthara et Hooker, Gen. PI. iii. 437 (1880); Masters,
Journ. Linn. Soc. (Bot.) xxx. 2 6 (1893).
Dombeya, Lamarck, Diet. i i. 301 (non Cavanilles) (1786).
TALL evergreen trees, with naked buds and coriaceous leaves, which are widest
at their bases and spirally arranged on the shoots. 1 Usually dioecious. Male flowers
in catkin-like masses, solitary or in fascicles at the ends of the branchlets ; anthers
numerous, with a prolonged connective, from which hang six to fifteen pollen sacs.
Female flowers terminal, composed of many scales spirally arranged in a continuous
series with the leaves, there being no obvious distinction between the seed-scale and
the bract; each scale bears one ovule attached to the scale along its whole length.
Cones globular, composed of imbricated wedge-shaped scales thickened at the apex.
Seeds, one on each scale and adnate to it, flattened and without wings.
The genera Araucaria and Agathis constitute the tribe Araucarinece, which are
distinguished from the other Conifene by having a single ovule on a simple scale.
In Agathis the ovule is free from the scale, while in Araucaria it is united with it.
Cunninghamia, which was considered by Bentham and Hooker and by Masters to
belong to this tribe, is now generally classed with the Taxodinece ; in it each scale
bears three ovules.
There are about ten species of Araucaria, inhabitants of South America, Australia,
New Guinea, New Hebrides, New Caledonia, and Norfolk Island. A raucaria
Cunninghami has been reported several times as growing in the open air in England;
but in some cases it is evident that Cunninghamia sinensis was the tree in question,
while in other cases small plants were referred to which were speedily killed by the
cold of our winters. 2 Araucaria imbricata is the only species which is hardy in this
country. There are fine specimens of some of the other species in the Temperate
House at Kew, viz. A raucaria Bidwilli, 48 feet high; Araucaria excelsa, 48 feet;
Araucaria Cunninghami, 47 feet; and Araucaria Cookii, 30 feet.
1 Araucaria Bidwilli has the leaves also spirally arranged, but by twisting on their bases they assume a pseudo-
distichous appearance.
2 In a letter in the Gardeners' Chronicle, May I, 1869, Mr James Barnes, then gardener at Bicton, states, in reply to a
suggestion that the tree there might be Cunninghamia, that it was really Araucaria Cunninghami, and that it had attained a
height of 36 feet, with a diameter of branches of 28 feet, in a sheltered plantation in that favourable locality. But this tree
was no longer living when I visited Bicton in 1902. (II. J. E.)
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