conical, sharp-pointed, glabrous, brown, few-scaled, and appressed to the branchlets. Leaves (Plate 202, Fig. 2) variable in size, 1 to 2½ inches in length, ½ to 1 inch in breadth, thin in texture, ovate-oblong, unequal at the rounded or cuneate base, sub-acute or obtuse at the apex; dark-green above, very pale beneath, both surfaces glabrous except for slight pubescence on the midrib and nerves; margin shallowly lobulate in the lower half, the lobules and upper part of the leaf serrate with minute triangular acute teeth; nerves 8 to 11 pairs, prominent on the lower surface, running obliquely to the margin; petiole ⅛ to ¼ inch long. Male flowers solitary ; calyx irregularly lobed, stamens thirty to forty. Fruit: involucre four-valved, valves pubescent on the back with lobed appendages bearing stalked glands; nuts three, two trigonous and three-winged, one flattened and two-winged.
This species is very variable, especially as regards the size and pubescence of the leaf, and De Candolle’ distinguished three varieties :—Var. valdiviana: leaves small, glabrous, with cuneate base; var. macranthera: stamens long, leaves pubes- cent beneath; and var. macrocarpa, with the nuts longer than the valves of the involucre.
N. obligua was introduced ® into England by Lobb in 1849, and in the following year it was said to have been growing freely in the open air in Messrs. Veitch’s nursery at Exeter. None of the original plants appear, however, to have survived.
Plants raised from seed, brought from Chile by Elwes in 1902, have grown with great vigour at Kew,’ being now about 8 feet in height. At Monreith, Sir Herbert Maxwell, who received a plant from Kew, reports that it has borne without injury 20° of frost, and may be assumed to be perfectly hardy. In Lord Ducie’s garden at Tortworth, this tree has grown with astonishing vigour, being now 12 feet high and 8 inches in girth; it endured the severe frost of May 1905 without any apparent injury. The seedlings which were raised at Colesborne, however, never throve, and died before attaining any size, which is possibly due to the presence of lime in the soil.(A.H.)
NOTHOFAGUS ANTARCTICA
- Nothofagus antarctica, Oerstedt, Vidensk, Selsk. Skrift. V. ix. 354 (1873); Reiche, Chil, Buch. 11 (1897); Wildeman, Voy. Belgica, 73 (1904); Macloskie, Princeton Univ. Exped. Patagonia, Botany, 326 (1903-1906).
- Fagus antarctica, Foster, Comm. Goett. ix. 24 (1789); Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iii. 1982 (1838); Hooker, Journ. Bot. ii. 149, t. 6 (1840), and Fl. Antarct. ii. 345, t. 123 (1847).
- Calucechinus antarctica, Hombron et Jacquinot, Voy. Pôle Sud, Atlas, tt. 6, 7 (1853).
A deciduous tree, attaining in Terra del Fuego at low elevations a very large size. Young branchlets covered with dense erect pubescence, persistent in the second year. Buds, ⅛ inch long, ovoid, slightly compressed, glabrous, few-scaled. Leaves (Plate 202, Fig. 1) ½ to 1 inch long, crumpled and uneven in surface, oblong-
1 Prod, xvi. 2, p. 119 (1864).
2 Gard. Chron. 1849, p. 563; Lindley, Journ. Hort. Soc. vi. 265 (1851); Lindley and Paxton, Flower Garden, ii. 166 (1852).
3 Cf. Kew Bull. 1906, p. 379.
