the wood hard, close-grained, and heavy, equally valuable for 
ship-building and implements of husbandry.” The younger 
branches green and downy. Leaves opposite, on very short 
thick petioles, elliptical and often obtuse, but varying to ovato- 
lanceolate, or even lanceolate and acute, coriaceous, under a 
lens minutely reticulated and dotted, dark green and glabrous 
above, pale, whitish or ash-colour, and downy or tomentosé 
beneath. Corymés terminal, very tomentose: pedicels bearing 
two or three sessile fowers articulated upon them. Ovary or 
calyzx-tube between cylindrical and turbinate, woolly, crowned 
by the five, spreading, ovate calyx-lobes. Petals yellow, minute. 
Stamens copious. Filaments very long, at first beautifully invo- 
lute, at length erect, bright red.  S%yle shorter than the 
stamens. W. J. H. 
Cur. This beautiful Metrosideros is analogous in its manner 
of growth to the species figured at t.4471. In its native country 
it is described as making its first appearance on other trees, as an 
epiphyte. By its strong and rapid growth it soon envelopes the 
parent tree, its woody roots descending till they reach the 
ground, and there spreading to a great extent, while the main 
roots, by their numbers and interlacings, ultimately become so 
combined that they form a trunk of a singular appearance and 
sometimes of an immense size. The original tree dies, and its 
decaying trunk becomes food for the parasite ; the latter in this 
respect resembling the fig-trees of the tropics or the ivy of this 
country. It is also said to form a tree without the aid of others. 
With us it grows luxuriantly if planted in light loam and 
kept in a cool greenhouse, and forms a handsome evergreen bush. 
The figure here represented was made from an individual that 
had become too large for our greenhouse accommodation. As it 
afforded the opportunity of testing the degree of cold it would 
bear, a sheltered situation amongst trees was selected, where it 
was planted in May 1849. During the summer it flowered 
profusely, presenting a very striking appearance for an out-door 
shrub, and continued to flourish till the first frosts; but we 
observe with regret, that this fine shrub will not live in the open 
air where the thermometer falls a few degrees below the freezing 
point. It is a plant of free growth, and is readily propagated 
by cuttings. J.8. 
Fig. 1. Flower, from which the stamens are removed :—magnified. 
