Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/695

Dacrydium.] in New Zealand. The wood is deep-red, strong, hard, and heavy, but often twisted in the grain. It is largely used for building purposes of all kinds and for the manufacture of furniture, but is not nearly as durable as either kauri or totara.

5. D. intermedium, T. Kirk in Trans. N.Z. Inst. x. (1878) 386, t. 20.—A small tree 20–40 ft. high or more; branches spreading; trunk 1-2 ft. diam., rarely more; bark brownish-grey. Leaves of very young plants lax, spreading, ⅓–½ in. long, narrow linear-subulate, acute, curved, terete; gradually passing into the leaves of young trees, which are closer-set, squarrose or erecto-patent, ⅛–¼ in. long, broadly subulate, trigonous, acute. These again pass by imperceptible transitions into those of mature trees, which are densely quadrifariously imbricate and appressed to the branch, $1⁄15$–$1⁄10$ in. long, ovate-triangular or rhomboid, obtuse, keeled, very thick and coriaceous. Flowers diœcious or rarely monœcious. Males usually abundantly produced, solitary, terminal, sessile, about ¼ in. long; anthers numerous; connective broadly triangular, acute. Female flowers solitary at the tips of the branchlets. Nut oblong, obtuse or apiculate, faintly striate, not compressed, ⅛–⅙ in. long, enclosed at the base in a short cup-shaped aril.—Forest Fl. t. 86; Pilger in Pflanzenreich, iv. 5, 51.

6. D. Colensoi, ''Hook. Ic. Plant. t. 548 (not of Hook. f.).—A small tree 20–40 ft. high or more, very similar in mode of growth to D. intermedium,'' but rather taller and more conical, with a straighter and cleaner trunk; branchlets more slender, often flexuous, $1⁄20$–$1⁄15$ in. diam. Leaves of very young plants lax, spreading, ¼–½ in. long, narrow linear-subulate, terete, decurrent at the base; gradually passing into the leaves of young trees, which are more closely set, ⅛–⅙ in. long, lanceolate or narrow-triangular, acute, falcate, flat, decurrent at the base, often more or less spreading in one plane, giving the branchlets a distichous appearance. These pass by insensible gradations into those of mature trees, which are small and scale-like, densely quadrifariously imbricate and appressed to the branch, $1⁄20$–$1⁄12$ in. long, rhomboid, obtuse or subacute, thick and coriaceous, keeled, apex often incurved. Flowers diœcious. Males solitary, terminal, sessile, ⅛–⅙ in. long; anthers numerous; connective broad, triangular, acute. Female flowers at the tips of the branchlets. Nuts 1 or 2, oblong, obtuse, not com-