214 Specimen of the Botany of Neiv Zealand. 



ham. (Middle Island), in marshy forests on the shores of Tasman's Bay. — 

 1827, D'Urville. 



A white pine of tall stately growth, exhibiting oftentimes a clear 

 stem of eighty feet, and with its branched head attaining a height of 

 120 and 130 feet, the diameter of such trees exceeding five feet. 

 Except for common canoes, in the construction of which it is em- 

 ployed by the natives on account of the great length of its trunk, 

 its wood is seldom used, being of so soft and spongy a nature as to 

 rot in a few months of exposure to the weather. It has been asserted 

 that as for all the canoes made on Middle Island this timber is em- 

 ployed, so the Dammar a or Kauri does not grow upon it. Certain 

 it is, at least, that the latter noble tree has not been seen in its 

 forests by voyagers. 



332. D. cupressinum (Sol.), foliis linearibus sulmlatis tetragonis muticis 

 viridibus angulis elevatis, junioribus divaricatis, adultioribus laxe imbricatis, 

 ramulis flexuosis dependentibus. Sol. 31SS. Lamb. Piw.p. 93. t. 41. Rich. 

 Conif. p. 127. t. 2. A. Rich. Fl. Nov. Zel. p. 361.— Spruce tree of New 

 Zealand. Cook's 2nd Voyage, i. p. 70. t. 51. — Rium or Deum of the natives. 



New Zealand (Middle Island), Dusky Bay.— 1773, G. Forster.— 1791, 

 A. Menzies, Esq. Astrolabe Harbour. — 1827, D'Urville. (Northern Is- 

 land). — 1769, Sir Jos. Banks. — 1826, A. Cunningham. Bay of Islands, &c. 

 — 1834, R. Cunningham. 



This elegant tree, a red pine, attains its greatest perfection, as we 

 learn from Mr. Yate, in shaded woods and in moist rich soils. Its 

 topmost branches are not more than eighty feet from the ground, 

 and the diameter of its trunk seldom exceeds four feet. The foliage, 

 especially when the individual is young, is remarkably graceful and 

 beautiful. Capt. Vancouver, who met with it in abundance in the 

 forests of Dusky Bay, cut down several of these trees to refit his 

 vessel, and found the timber solid and close-grained and very much 

 resembling the Bermudas cedar. From the younger branches, which 

 give out a bitter resinous juice, Capt. Cook on his second voyage to 

 those islands prepared a kind of spruce beer, which he found ex- 

 cellent in scorbutic complaints, with which some of his seamen were 



affected. 



URTICE.^, Juss. 



1. Urtica, L. 



333. U. ferox. Willd. Sp. PL 4. p. 352. A. Rich. Fl. Nov. Zel. p. 354. 

 Forst. Prodr. n. 346. 



New Zealand (Middle Island), Queen Charlotte's Sound, Cook's Strait. — 

 1773, G. Forster. 



334. U. debilis, caule herb.-:ceo erectiusculo foliisque alternis ovatis petio- 

 latis integerrimis pilosiusculis, pedunculis axillaribus trifloris. Endl. Prodr. 



