288 PODOCARPUS. 



branches are alternate and scattered ; from a quarter to one inch 

 and a quarter long, and one line broad, needle-shaped, imbri- 

 cated, placed all round, and glaucous below, while those on the 

 small lateral ones and branchlets are regularly linear, acute- 

 pointed, and mostly falcate, of a dull green, or reddish brown 

 on the upper surface, and with two glaucous bands below, re- 

 curved at the edges, oblique at the base, and placed on very 

 short slender footstalks, rounded at the ends, sometimes 

 spoon-shaped, and furnished with a very fine and short mucro. 

 Branches and branchlets, numerous, flexuose, ascending, or 

 spreading horizontal, or sometimes deflected, and covered with 

 a reddish bark, Male catkins, from ten to twenty in number, 

 sessile, and disposed in erect axillary spikes, those of the female 

 ones in loose, many-fruited spikes. Fruit, globular, nearly 

 sessile, and from four to seven on each. 



An enormous tree, growing from 150 to 200 feet high, with a 

 straight stem, found growing in swampy places on the Northern 

 Island of New Zealand, where the natives call it ' Mai.' 



It is quite tender. 



No 40, PoDOCARPUs TAXiFOLiA, Humholdt, the Yew-leaved 



Podocarpus. 

 Syn. Taxus montana, Willdenow, not Nuttall. 

 „ Podocarpus montana, Loddiges. 

 „ Torreya Humboldti, Knight. 

 „ Dacrydium distichum, Don. 

 „ Podocarpus Humboldti, Hort. 



Leaves, somewhat in two rows, or scattered, broadly linear, 

 frequently more or less sickle-shaped, bluntly rounded at the 

 ends, rarely pointed, but mostly furnished with a very short 

 mucro, entire, leathery, flat, smooth, of a bright glossy green, a 

 little convex above, and much paler below; from one inch to 

 one inch and a quarter long, and one line and a half, rarely 

 two lines broad, with a slight rib along the upper surface, but 

 hardly visible on the under one except by its colour. Branches, 

 ascending or spreading, but sometimes on old trees drooping ; 

 branchlets, in two rows, and alternate. Flower spikes, branch- 



