CHAP. CXI 11. 



CONl'FER.i;. ^BIE'TINiE. 



2449 



and fine grain of the wood, made Captain Cook 

 tliink that, if it proved light enough, it would 

 make excellent masts. In consequence of his 

 report, but several year- afterwards, a small 

 spar was brought to England by the Catharine 

 whale-ship, which proved, to use the seamen's 

 phrase, " a stick of first-rate quality." Cap- 

 tain Cruise was afterwards sent out in the 

 Dromedary to bring home some spars of this 

 wood. He found many trees with trunkslOO ft. 

 high, without a single branch, and then form, 

 ing large heads ; while the trunks of others, 

 not so tall, were 40 ft. in circumference. It 

 was, however, very difficult to procure spars, as 

 the large trees grew ou the very summit of the 

 highest hills. Two ships were afterwards sent 

 out under Captain Downie, who not only 

 brought home timber, but a living plant, which 

 was presented to the Horticultural Society 

 about isai. (See Latrib. Pin., ed. 2., 2. p. 103.) 

 In 1833, another expedition was sent out for 

 kauri pine in His Majesty's ship Buffalo; and 

 it was accompanied from Sydney by the late 

 Mr. Richard Cunningham, who found " many 

 fair and noble specimens of the undisputed 

 monarch of the forest, the kauri pines with their 

 vast heads towering above the other gigantic 

 timbers of those deeply shaded regions, sup. 

 I)orting on their upper branches large tufts of 

 those tillandsia-like epiphytes, the species of 

 Astelia, originally discovered by Sir Joseph 

 Banks. These plants are much valued by the 

 natives for the sweetne.';s of the stem on which 

 the flowers grow. They (the natives) will climb, 

 says Mr. Gates, the highest tree, in search of 

 these epii>hytes ; and, when they have,t.'athered 

 them, they will sit for a long lime at the bot. 

 tom of the tree, sucking out the juice of the 

 stem ; which to them, especially on a hot day, 

 is peculiarly grateful. These plants give the 

 smaller groves the appearance of an English 

 rookery, and there only wants thetui (.1/ferops 

 cincinnatus Lath.), that polyglot bird of the 

 woods of New Zealand, to imitate the cawing 

 of the rook, to make the deception complete." 



{Ccmp. to Bot. Mag., ii. p. 217.) The excellence of the wood of this tree has been already men 

 tioned, and Mr. Lambert adds to his account of it, that, on an experiment being tried as to the com 

 parative strength of the wood, and that of the Riga pine, the result was as follows : — Both pines 

 were 1| in. square, 3 ft. long, and suspended 10 in. from the end. The kauri pine bore a weight of 

 1 cwt. 2 qr. and \u lb. before it broke, and the Riga i)ine only 1 cwt. 2 qr. and 1 lb. ; but the 

 kauri pine weighed lib. 13 oz., while the Riga pine weighed only lib. 8oz. {l.amb. Pin.) In 

 1837, a contract was made to send a large quantity of wood of this pine to England. The tree yields, 

 both si)ontaneously and by incision, a great quantity of pure limpid resin, which hardens by exposure 

 to the air, and which is excellent as varnish. In 1837, Mr. Lambert received an immense mass of 

 this resin, 6 in. or 8 in. in diameter. The outside is opaque, and of a dirty white ; but, where broken, 

 it has a glassy transparent look, and a pale green tinge. The Ddmmara austrMis was first treated 

 as a hot-house plant in England, but has since been found to thrive better in the green-house. 

 There is a tree planted out at Dropmore, which, in 1837, was 5ft. high. It was, however, very 

 unhealthy, and requires to be strongly protected in winter. 



App. 



1. 



A Tabular Vicxo of the principal Pine/wns, or Collect iotis 

 of KhictincE^ in Etirope. 



The names of the pinetums are arranged, as nearly as could be ascertained, 

 in the order in which they were commenced ; and the species in the order 

 in which they are described in the preceding pages. The existence of a 

 species in any pinetum is indicated by its height in feet, according to measure- 

 ments sent us in 1837; but, when the height is not exactly known, the exist- 

 ence of a species or variety in any pinetum or collection is indicated by a 

 cross, thus + . When the species or variety is of doubtful existence in any 

 collection, a point of interrogation is used ; and when it is wanting, a cipher 

 is introduced. 



It is proper to observe, that our table, which occupies the two following 

 pages, does not contain nearly so many names purporting to be species and 

 varieties, as are in some of the original Hsts of the collections sent to us. For 

 example, in the catalogue of the pinetum at Flitwick, (which ranks next to 

 that at Dropmore, in the number of kinds,) there are of Pinus 59 names of 

 species and varieties, of /i'bies (including Picea) 27, and of Larix 7. The 

 reason why we have omitted several of these names is, that we are doubtful as 

 to the application of some of them, and consider others as only varieties, or as 



7 T 2 



