Page:Australia, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay.djvu/46

 south of this point. This variety of pine, and the Araucaria excelsa, or Norfolk Island pine, which is grown as an ornamental tree in the Sydney gardens, and also grows very extensively on the northeastern coast of New Holland, are the most beautiful and stately of all the genus Coniferæ in the known world; they frequently exceed two hundred feet in height. The following remarks on the Araucaria excelsa, are by Mr. Cunningham, the late enterprising colonial botanist; they are quoted in Murray's Encyclopaedia of Geography, from which work I have copied them:—" The famous Araucaria excelsa, reckoned amongst the loftiest trees in the world, which was first found in Norfolk Island, and New Caledonia, has been ascertained by Allan CunninghamMr. Cunningham to extend from Mount Warning, on the east coast, in latitude 29&deg; south, thence sparingly towards the tropics, within which it is very abundant, forming upon several islands the only timber. This is probably the nearest approach of the species to the equinoctial line; and although it occupies an area of nine hundred miles, it is probably limited in Terra Australis, to its immediate shores; and as