North Island: Abundant in forests throughout. South Island: Nelson and Marlborough—In various localities on the shores of Cook Strait. Seal-evel to 2500 ft. Tawa. November–December.
A well-known tree, in many portions of the North Island constituting the largest portion of the forest. The wood is white, straight in the grain, easily worked, and is largely used for buckets, tubs, casks, &c. The plum-like fruit was formerly collected by the Maoris for food, the pulpy portion being eaten in the raw state, and the kernel after prolonged steaming.
2. LITSÆA, Lam.
Trees or shrubs. Leaves alternate or rarely opposite, penninerved or triplinerved; leaf-buds naked or scaly. Flowers diœcious, in 4–6, or rarely many-flowered umbels; umbels axillary or fascicled or racemose, each one enclosed before the expansion of the flowers within a globose involucre; involucral scales 4–6, broad, concave. Perianth-tube ovoid or campanulate or scarcely conspicuous; limb with 4–6 segments, rarely more or fewer. Male flowers: Stamens usually 9–12; the filaments of the inner row or all glandular at the base; anthers all introrse, 4-celled. Ovary rudimentary. Female flowers: Staminodia present. Ovary oblong or ovoid, narrowed into the style; stigma usually dilated and irregularly lobed. Fruit a more or less succulent oerry, seated on the usually enlarged perianth-tube.
Species about 150, most abundant in tropical and eastern Asia, the Malayan and Pacific islands, and Australia, rare in Africa and America. The single species found in New Zealand is endemic therein.
1. L. calicaris, Benth. and Hook. f. ex T. Kirk Forest Fl. t. 10.—A perfectly glabrous closely branched leafy tree 30–40 ft. high, with a trunk 1½–2½ ft. diam; bark dark greyish-brown. Leaves alternate, petiolate, 2–5 in. long, ovate or ovate-oblong, obtuse or narrowed into an obtuse point, quite entire, firm but hardly coriaceous, often glaucous beneath; petioles ½–1 in. long. Flowers often very abundantly produced, in 4–5-flowered involucrate umbels arranged in short axillary racemes. Involucral leaves usually 4. Pedicels short, silky. Perianth-segments 5–8, oblong or ovate, obtuse. Stamens about 12; filaments slender, all with 2 stipitate glands near the base. Female flowers rather smaller and less numerous than the males. Stammodia flattened, each 2-glandular near the base. Ovary ovoid; stigma dilated, irregularly 3-lobed. Berry oblong-ovoid, ¾ in. long, reddish, seated in a flat cup-shaped disc composed of the enlarged perianth-tube.—Tetranthera calicaris, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 216; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 238. T. Tangao, R. Cunn. ex A. Cunn. Precur. n. 353. Laurus calicaris, Sol. ex A. Cunn. Precur. n. 353; Raoul, Choix, 42.
North Island: Not uncommon in forests from the North Cape southwards to Rotorua and the East Cape. Sea-level to 2000 ft. Mangeao; Tangeao. September–October.
Wood strong, tough, and elastic, suitable for all classes of coopers' or wheelwrights' work, for ships' blocks, &c.
