Page:Transactions NZ Institute Volume 17.djvu/388

306 and good after being sixteen years in use. Some of the telegraph poles of the first line erected in the Waimakariri Country were furnished by this species; those fixed in dry soils perished in four or five years, while those driven in swamps remained sound for a much longer period. Similar results have been obtained with fencing posts furnished by mountain beech.

Hitherto this species has been confused with the mountain beech, although its differential characters are easily recognized. It has been observed in the valley of the Dart and other places about Lake Wakatipu, and by the Little Grey River at elevations between 1,000 and 2,000 feet; also I believe on the Five Rivers Plain.

Usually it attains rather larger dimensions than mountain beech, being from 40 to 60 feet high: it is easily distinguished from that species by the ovate apiculate leaves clothed with appressed fulvous tomentum beneath in the mature state.

The habit and spray of this species more closely approaches F. sylvatica of Europe than any other New Zealand species.

At present nothing is known as to the durability of the timber, which in appearance resembles that of mountain beech.