Dacrydium.| CONIFERS. 657 
7. D. laxifolium, Hook. f. in Hook. Lond. Journ. Bot. iv. 
(1845) 143.—A small prostrate shrub with very slender trailing 
branches 3-24 in. long; rarely suberect, and reaching a height of 
2ft. Leaves of young plants lax, spreading, 4-1 in. long, narrow- 
Flowers dicecious or moncecious. Males solitary, terminal, sessile, 
++in. long. Female flowers solitary and terminal. Nut small, 
erect, oblong, obtuse with a small curved apiculus, about fin. long; 
receptacle sometimes dry, sometimes swollen and succulent. — Jc. 
Plant. t. 825; Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 234; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 259; Kirk 
m Trans. N.Z. Inst. x. (1878) 388; Forest Fl. t. 87; Pilger in 
Pflanzenreich, iv. 5, 50. 
NorrH Isnanp: Tongariro, Bidwill, Hector! T. F. C.; Ruapehu, Rev. 
Ff. H. Spencer! Ruahine Mountains, Colenso! H. Hill! Hamilton! Sours 
IstanpD, Srewart IsnanD: Common in mountain districts throughout. 
Usually between 2500ft. and 4000ft., but descends to sea-level in Stewart 
Island. 
A very remarkable little species, probably the smallest known pine. 
Fruiting specimens can often be seen barely 3in. in diameter, although the 
usual size of the plant is more. The minute imbricated leaves are often 
entirely wanting, even in old plants; at other times both imbricated and 
‘spreading leaves occur on the same branch, 
5. PHYLLOCLADUS, L. ©. Rich. 
Trees or shrubs; branches often whorled; branchlets flattened 
and expanded into rigid and coriaceous toothed or lobed leaf-like 
cladodia. True leaves reduced to linear scales. Flowers mone- 
cious or dicecious. Males fascicled at the tips of the branchlets, 
catkin-like, peduncled ; each peduncle arising from the axil of a 
leafy bract. Staminal column oblong or cylindrical; anthers 
numerous, densely spirally imbricate, 2-celled; connective pro- 
longed into an acute claw. Female flowers sessile on the margins 
of the cladodia or on peduncle-like divisions of the cladodia. Ovuli- 
ferous scales 1 or several, thick and fleshy, free. Ovule solitary, 
erect. Seeds erect, ovoid or oblong, compressed, protruding from 
the enlarged and fleshy scales, each seated within a cup-shaped 
aril. Cotyledons 2. 
Besides the 3 species found in New Zealand, there is one in Tasmania, 
another in Borneo, and a sixth in New Guinea and the Philippine Islands. The 
genus is remarkable for the flattened cladodes or leaf-like branchlets, which take 
the place of the true leaves, these last being reduced to linear deciduous scales. 
The New Zealand species have been excellently described and figured by Mr. 
Kirk in Vol. x. of the ‘‘ Transactions of the New Zealand Institute’ and in his 
*« Forest Flora.” 
