The kauri-pine, too well known to require any detailed account. Timber not excelled by any other for the variety of uses for which it is adapted, and remarkable for its strength, durability, and the ease with which it is worked. The resin, or "kauri-gum," so important for varnish-making, is still dug in large quantities on the sites of previous forests, or obtained from those still living.
2. LIBOCEDRUS, Endl.
Usually tall trees. Leaves opposite, small and scale-like, quadrifariously imbricate, either all equal and decussate, or flattened on the branchlets, the lateral larger and keeled, those on the upper and lower faces of the branchlets smaller and flat. Flowers monœcious or diœcious; males terminal, solitary, oblong or ovoid or almost globose, consisting of a staminal column sessile within the uppermost leaves and bearing several or many decussately placed anthers; connective scale-like, ovate, subpeltate; anther-cells usually 4, pendulous. Female cones oblong or ovoid, terminating short branchlets; scales 4 or 6, decussately opposite, the lowest pair smallest and sterile, the second pair with 2 erect collateral ovules at the base of each scale, the third pair when present sterile and connate. Scales of the mature cones persistent, gaping, indurated, mucronate or horned at the back towards the tip. Seeds solitary or rarely 2 at the base of each fertile scale, compressed, unequally winged.
A small genus of 9 species, with a very singular distribution, 1 being found in California, 2 in Chili, 2 in New Zealand, and 1 each in New Caledonia, New Guinea, China, and Japan.
| Branchlets of mature trees more or less compressed, not tetragonous. Cones ½ in. long | 1. L. Doniana. |
| Branchlets of mature trees always tetragonous. Cones ¼–⅓ in. long | 2. L. Bidwillii. |
1. L. Doniana, Endl. Syn. Conif. 43.—A tall forest-tree 30 to 70 ft. high or more, with a narrow tapering head; trunk 2–4 ft. diam.; bark stringy, falling off in long ribbons. Branchlets distichous; of young trees vertical, much flattened and compressed, ⅕–¼ in. broad; of old trees horizontal, less compressed, but not obviously tetragonous, 110–18 in. broad. Leaves quadrifarious, the lateral larger, especially on young trees, where they are often ⅕ in. long, sheathing and connate at the base, spreading, acute; those on the upper and lower faces of the branchlets 125–112 in. ong, triangular, appressed to the branch. Male flowers about ¼ in. long, hardly broader than the branch; anthers 8–12; connective thin, ovate, subpeltate. Female cones ovoid, about ½ in. long, woody; scales 4, spreading, each with a sharp curved spine at the back. Seeds 2 to each cone.—Handb. N.Z. Fl. 256; Kirk, Forest Fl. t. 82. Thuya Doniana, Hook. in Lond. Journ. Bot. i. (1842) 571; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 231. Dacrydium plumosum, D. Don. in Lamb. Pin. ed. ii. App. 143; A. Cunn. Precur. n. 330.
