216 BURMA, ITS PEOPLE AXD PRODUCTIONS. 



Dackydium, Solander. 



Flowers dioecious in catkins. Male catkins terminal, solitary, small. Anther- 

 learing Iracts usually many, crowded and very shortly- stalked. Female flowers 

 usually solitary, rarely collected by 3 or 9 in a stiff but la.^ spike. Nut minute, 

 almost long, at the base surrounded by a lax outer involucre and inclosed in the 

 inner fleshy involucre, gaping at the apes. 



D. ELATU5I, Wall. E.T. Burma (probably Tenasserim). 



All parts glabrous. Leaves of two sorts : one, scale-like, densely imbricate, ovate- 

 linear, blunt, mucronate ; the other acicular, 4-8 lines long, pungent-acute, somewhat 

 4-comered, curved. 



Nageia, Gaertner. 



Flowers dicecious in catkins. Anther-hearing bracts numerous, crowded, very 

 shortly-stalked. Female flowers solitary or few, the bracts connate with the fleshy 

 rachis, and free only at the apex. Fruit fleshy, with a long perieai-p, almost globuhir, 

 or ovoid, seated on a fleshy thickened rachis. Emhrijo at the summit of the mealy 

 albumen. 



N. (PoDOCAEPUs) LATiFOLiA, Wall. E.T. Tonasserim. 



Agathis loranthifolia (apud !Mason). 

 Dammara orientalis, Lamb (il.). 



Thyt-myn. 



Leaves opposite, or neai'ly so, many-nerved, oblong-lanceolate. Fruit the size 

 of a small chci'ry. "Wood pale yellowish, flue grained. Weight 41 lbs. 



For some reason the Burmese highly value this tree as sacred, and often insert 

 a wedge or plug of it into the stem of a new canoe or boat, to insure good luck. This 

 must be the tree, I think, which Dr. Mason refers to under the name of Dammer 

 pine: " Grifhths mentions Agathis loranthiflora {sic) or the dammer pine, as a member 

 of the Tenasserim Flora, and I have seen the young plants of the tree to which 

 he must refer. The leaf is precisely that of the dammer pine, but it is not known 

 to yield any dammer. The wood is white, rather light, and bears considerable 

 resemblance to some kind of pine. It is used by native carpenters for various 

 jnirposes, and the Burmese have a superstition that the beams or balances of their 

 scales ought to be formed of this wood. They call it 'Thyt-myn,' king of woods. 

 It is used by them, says Major Berdmore, to avert e^-il, by driving a peg of it 

 into a house post or a boat. It is very hard." This last remark, however, is 

 an error of Major Berdmore. It is not a little curious that a somewhat similar 

 observance seems to have traditionally come down to us, as performed in building 

 the first ship, ^4^170. In the work of that name, hy the Earl of Craufurd and 

 Balcarres, Minerva is represented as a])pcnring to Jason on the eve of his voyage, 

 and commanding him to repair to Dodona and its holy oak. 



"There in the midst, one tree stands hoar, sublime, 

 Whose date coeval, knows no peer but Time ; 

 No sire it owns, no children, there is none 

 Like it on earth, it lives to God, alone." 

 # * * % % * * * * 

 I will be with thee to sustain thy prayer. 

 Thee praying, veiled thy face, and prostrate there ; 

 A conscious limb will sever from on high, 

 That none may near, that none may touch but I. 

 Of Life and Truth, this, within Argo's keel 

 Will I imbed, that long as nightly wheel 

 The ' Dancers ' round the Polestar, shall impart 

 A life immortal to her." 



Argo, Book I. line 585 et scq. 



