pubescent on the margin, each bearing above the middle on the back a lanceolate, subulate, erect, incurved spine; the two smaller scales lanceolate; the two larger scales oblong, each bearing a solitary seed; the larger wing oblique, obovate, obtuse, twice as long as the seed, the shorter wing narrow. (A.H.)
This tree inhabits the western slopes of the Andes of Chile from latitude 35° southwards, and was collected by me in February, 1902, on the west end of Lake Nahuel-Huapi at two to three thousand feet. It was growing both on swampy ground, where it attained a considerable size, and on the steep hill-sides above Puerto Blest. The natives of the district call it Alerce,[1] which is the usual name in South Chile for Fitzroya patagonica, and use it for making long straight thin shingles, which seem to be extremely durable. Owing to the inaccessible nature of the country and the scarcity of inhabitants, little or no timber has as yet been cut in the dense forests which clothe the shores of this large and picturesque lake. Judging from the climate, which is severe in winter, this beautiful tree should be hardy in the west and south-west of Great Britain and Ireland. According to Dusen and Macloskie,[2] it is common in Western Patagonia, extending through Fuegia to Cape Horn, rising up to the snow-line in the mountains, and met with of all sizes, from 2 to 160 feet high. As a rule it never forms forests, but grows either in small thin groves or sparingly mixed with Nothofagus betuloides and Drimys Winteri.
It was introduced by W. Lobb[3] in 1849, but is excessively rare in cultivation, the only specimen we have seen being a small tree 15 feet high, in 1906, at Kilmacurragh, Co. Wicklow. This tree is narrowly pyramidal in habit, with bark scaling off in long papery ribbons.(H.J.E.)
LIBOCEDRUS CHILENSIS
- Libocedrus chilensis, Endlicher, Syn. Conif. 44 (1847); Lindley, Journ. Hort. Soc. v. 35 (1850); Lindley and Paxton, Flower Garden, i. 48, £. 33 (1850); Kent, Veitch's Man. Coniferæ, 252 (1900).
- Thuya chilensis, Don, in Lambert, Pinus, ii. 19 (1824); Hooker, London Journ. Bot. ii. 199, t. 4 (1843).
- Thuya andina, Poeppig et Endlicher, Nov. Gen. et Spec. iii. 17, t. 220 (1845).
A tree, attaining in Chile 50 feet in height, usually with a short trunk branching into a compact pyramidal head, or becoming at high altitudes a dense shrub. Branchlets compressed, slender; leaves scale-like in four imbricated ranks, those of the lateral ranks much longer than the others, boat-shaped, free at the apex, and spreading for one-third their length, keeled, acute, marked above and below with a white stomatic band; median leaves, minute, appressed, rounded at the apex, the dorsal with a prominent gland.
- ↑ Sir W.T. Thiselton-Dyer suggests that this is no doubt a Spanish corruption of the Arabic El Arz, a name which seems to include any coniferous tree, e.g. Cedrus Libani and Pinus halepensis, According to Pearce, the tree producing the valuable alerce timber is Fitzroya patagonica. Cf. Hortus Veitchii, 46 (1906).
- ↑ Scott, Princetown Univ. Exped. Patagonia, viii. 6, 18, 142 (1903).
- ↑ Gard. Chron. 1849, p. 563.
