green above; pale-green beneath; ovate or ovate-lanceolate; 2 to 3 inches long on barren branchlets, about 1 inch long on flowering shoots; unequally cuneate at the base, acuminate at the apex, finely and sharply serrate; lateral nerves 8 to 12 pairs, prominent on the upper surface; petioles very short, pubescent. Flowers unknown. Fruit: involucre about ⅝ inch long, four-lobed; lobes lanceolate, acute with pubescent scales terminating in glandular processes; nuts three, two three-winged, the -winged. NE a was discovered by Mr. C. Moore, Curator of the Botanic Gardens, Sydney, in New South Wales, and is the only southern beech occurring in a subtropical region. It forms dense forests at the head of Bellinger River and Bealsdown Creek, at about 4000 feet altitude; and a few trees have also been seen near the source of the Macleay River. It was introduced into cultivation at Kew about fifteen years ago, and there is a small tree now growing there in the Temperate House. The only specimen living in the open air, so far as we know, is growing in the garden of Mr. Thomas Acton at Kilmacurragh, Co. Wicklow. It was 18 feet high in 1906, and had bark resembling that of Prunus avium. (A.H.)
NOTHOFAGUS CUNNINGHAMI
- Nothofagus Cunninghami, Oerstedt, Vidensk. Selsk. Skrift, V. ix. 355 (1873).
- Fagus Cunninghami, J. D. Hooker, Journ. Bot. ii. 152, t. 7 (1840), and Flora Tasmaniæ, i. 346 (1860); F.v. Mueller, Fragm. Phyt. Austral. v. 110 (1865); Bentham, Flora Australiensis, vi. 210 (1873); Rodway, Tasmanian Flora, 182 (1903).
An evergreen tree, said to attain in Tasmania 200 feet in height and 4o feet in girth. Bark, as seen in cultivated trees, roughened by small scales and fissuring longitudinally. Young branchlets densely and minutely pubescent. Buds conical, sharp-pointed and curved at the apex, shining, brown. Leaves (Plate 202, Fig. 5) persistent for two or three years, distichous and crowded on the branchlets, coriaceous, about ½ inch in length; broadly ovate, deltoid or rhombic; cuneate or cordate at the base, acute at the apex; unequally crenate in margin; both surfaces glabrous, veins inconspicuous and scarcely prominent beneath; petioles short, pubescent. Male flowers solitary; stamens eight. Fruit: involucre ¼ inch long, four-lobed, each lobe with five or six rows of dorsal transverse scales, split up into gland-tipped processes; nuts usually three, two lateral triquetrous and three-winged, the other flattened and two-winged.
This species is very common in Tasmania, where it is known as the "Tasmanian myrtle," and forms a large proportion of the forests in the mountainous and western humid districts. It ascends to 4000 feet, becoming at this elevation a mere shrub, a few feet in height. It also occurs on the mainland of Australia, in Victoria, in a few scattered localities, being most common according to F. v. Mueller on the Bawbaw mountains, and less common at Dandenong, Mount Juliet, Wilson's Promontory,
