Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 22.djvu/41

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SOME CURIOUS VEGETABLE GROWTHS.

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ure is not, perhaps, wholly unparalleled, but another most curious fact is that the two largest of the side-trunks are connected with the principal stem by sub-quadrangular braces resembling girders. These beams have probably been formed by an anastomosing of branches,

Fig. 1.—The Fir-tree of Alliaz. (From a sketch by Madame A. Pire.)

which, common enough among angiosperms, is extremely rare among conifers; but it has been impossible to ascertain the manner in which the ingrowing of one branch into the other has been effected. The

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