360 AUSTRALIAN NATIVE PLANTS. 
billiard tables, etc. The Yarra blacks used to use it to make 
mulga, or club shields. The figured wood is cut into veneers. It 
takes a fine polish, and is considered almost equal to American 
walnut. In fact, when polished or ebonised, it might easily be 
made to replace walnut, and no doubt many of the articles alleged 
to be made of walnut are of this wood. It is anexcellent wood for 
bending under steam. It warps and twists in boards over twelve 
inches wide unless they have been very carefully seasoned. 
“This wood is largely used for oil-casks, and is the only wood 
we have in Australia, as far as we know, that is suitabie for the 
purpose. It is split into staves, six by three inches thick, and six 
feet long.” (Tenison-Woods.) It is often very dark coloured, 
except for about one inch of thickness of sap-wood, which is 
almost white. It sometimes shows a very pretty “ broken grain,” 
which looks well under polish. ‘Its specific gravity is from .664 to 
-777, t.€., Weight of a cubic foot of the dried wood 41Ilbs. to 48lbs. 
The yield of charcoal from the wood is 29.25 per cent.; crude 
wood-vinegar, 40.25; and tar, 7.062.” (Mueller.) 
Mr. Gamble gives the weight per cubic foot of an Indian grown 
specimen at 36lbs., and states that it was cut from a tree twenty 
years old, and ninety feet high, which gave a plank two feet broad. 
“This tree has been extensively cultivated in Madras for 
revenue purposes, but the wood has there been found to possess 
few qualities prized by the cabinet-maker and builder. It warps 
after many months of seasoning, is not easily worked, and is not as 
durable as other timber accessible to the residents of the hill 
stations. The slowness of growth is much against the tree, and 
where it has been tried, in two instances, as an avenue tree, it has 
proved a failure. The worst feature, however, is its liability to 
attacks from a parasitical plant not unlike the mistletoe (Loranthus 
sp.), which spreads rapidly among the branches, and cannot be 
easily disengaged. . . . This parasite appears over and over 
again, as often as it is removed. As a fuel tree it is not prized so 
highly as A. dealbata.” (Madras Mail, 1885.) 
This tree was introduced on the Nilgiris in 1840, and is now 
completely naturalised. It is also being grown on the hills of the 
Punjab, Kumaun, and Sikkim. 
