Page:Reminiscences of Earliest Canterbury 1915.pdf/111

 Pahautea, or Silver Pine, grows only on the West Coast of the South Island, and in a few parts of the North. It is unknown on the Peninsula. Silver Pine is not a large tree, seldom attaining three feet in diameter. It grows on wet land, and furnishes one of our most durable timbers for ground work, being largely in request for telegraph poles and railway sleepers. The leaf of the Pahautea differs from that of any other New Zealand tree. The timber is comparatively soft, is yellowish white in colour, and is knotty and mottled in the grain, so that when polished it makes beautifully marked furniture. There is very little sap in the tree, but it is rich in oil, which protects it from decay and from the attacks of the borer, which never infests it. It is so durable in the ground that saplings six to eight inches through will stand in the ground for thirty to forty years. It is not used for housebuilding on account of its small size. Silver pine is rapidly being exhausted.

Koromiko (Veronica) represents the largest family of flowering shrubs in New Zealand. One variety is actually a tree from