The puriri produces the must valuable hardwood (jf any New Zealand tree. 

 It is of a dark-brown colour, very hard, dense and heavy, and of great strength, 

 but is, unfortunately, difficult to work on account of the irregular " grain " of the 

 timber. Its durability is unquestioned, and it is consequently largely employed 

 for railway-sleepers, gate and fencing posts, house-blocks, the framework of bridges, 

 and for any other purpose demanding strength, solidity, and the power of resisting 

 decay. Of late years it has been employed for furniture and cabinet-work, and 

 if carefully picked is quite equal to the best Italian or American walnut. For 

 this purpose, however, a serious defect exists in its liability, while living, to the 

 attacks of the larva of the " puriri-moth " {Hepialus virescens), which bores galleries 

 through it in all directions, the holes being large enough to admit the finger. They 

 are often sufficiently numerous to make it difficult to obtain baulks of any size free 

 from them, but they do not affect the durability of the timber. 



Vitex lucens is a tree of fairly rapid growth on good soils, and on account of 

 its ornamental appearance and umbrageous habit is now being largely planted in 

 gardens and plantations in the northern part of the North Island, and should be 

 still more extensively employed. It is too liable to injury from frost to succeed in 

 the South Island, save in certain exceptional localities. 



It is perhaps worth mention that the curious little pits or " domatia " first 

 described by me on the under-surface of the leaves in Coprosma (Trans. N.Z. Inst. 

 xix (1887), p. 221) also exist on the under-surface of the leaves of Vitex lucens, 

 and in the same situation — ^that is, in the axil formed by the union of the primary 

 veins with the midrib. As in Coprosma, they are often inhabited by a minute 

 yellowish acarid. 



Plate 161. Vitex lucens, drawn from specimens gathered in t.iie vicinity of Auckland. Fig. 1, 

 portion of under-surface of leaf, showing the little pits or "domatia" situated in the axils of the veins 

 (x 3) ; 2, calyx laid open (x 1-|-) ; 3, corolla laid open (natural size) ; i and 5, front and back view of 

 anthers (x 3) ; 6, transverse section of ovary (x 4) ; 7, longitudinal section of same (x 4) ; 8, section of 

 fruit (xli). 



