DACRYDIUM. 73 



Gen. DACRYDIUM. Solander. 



Flowers, dioecious, or male and female on separate plants. 



Fruit, drupaceous and erect. 



Seeds, with a hard, bony shell, resting in a short, disk-formed, 

 fleshy integument. 



Leaves, needle-shape or scale-formed, and opposite. 



Name derived from SaKpv (dakru), a tear, the gummy exuda- 

 tion of the trees. 



Trees and shrubs, natives of Tasmania, New Zealand, and the 

 East Indies. 



No. 1. Dacrydium Colensoi, Hooker, Colenso's Dacrydium. 

 Syn. Podocarpus biformis, Endlicher. 

 „ Alania sp., Colenso. 

 „ Lycopodium arboreum, JJanks. 



Leaves, many-shaped on the same branch, while on others 

 they are all uniform, some densely four-rowed, regularly imbri- 

 cated, ovate, rhomboid, bhintly pointed, and one line long, 

 while others are long-linear, loosely spreading, and from three 

 to six lines long, all leathery, of a bright glossy green, and 

 strongly ribbed ; again, others are scale-formed, somewhat 

 triangular, obtuse, very closely arranged, regularly imbricated, 

 and densely four-rowed. Branches, long, and variably disposed, 

 some ascending, others pendant, while the greater part are 

 spreading, and more or less horizontal ; male catkins, terminal, 

 solitary, and without footstalks ; fruit, small, lateral, leathery, 

 and placed on a horizontal, resinous desk, in the form of a cup. 



A very rare tree, even in New Zealand, growing 50 feet 

 high, and two feet and a half in diameter, found growing in 

 the western parts of the Northern Island of New Zealand. 



The timber is hard, and of an incorruptible nature. 



It is not hardy. 



