If its durability may justly rank with stone, itg strength may be 

 compared to iron, for except for its power of being split it ia as 

 difficult to work as some kinds of stone and iron. This difficulty of 

 working, added to its liability to unsoundness at the heart and 

 .Crookedness, renders it unlikely that it will ever serve any other 

 important purpose than as a fencing pole. For this it is unrivalled. 

 As a tree it is often small and ill-shaped, but, at its best, in warm 

 semi-tropical forests it becomes large and well grown. Dimensions 

 up to 6 feet in diameter and 60 feet total height are occasionally met 

 with on the mountains. It occurs along the coast hills and mountains 

 frem near Port Elizabeth to Delagoa Bay both in the coast scrubs 

 and in the higfh timlier forests on the mountains. Of a somewhat 

 slow growth and not easy to propagate and rear no large plantations 

 have yet been made of Sneezewood, but it is specially conserved and 

 encouraged in the forest where it occurs naturally. 



The heart wood is impregnated with a pungent essential oil 

 causing fits of sneezing when sawn. Hence the popular name of the 

 tree. It no doubt owes its extraordinary durability to this pungent oil. 



PODOCAKPUS ELONGATA OOTENIQUA YELLOW-WOOD. 



This is the largest and most generally useful tree in South 

 Africa. It frequently attains giant dimensions with diameters up to 

 ten feet, straight cylindrical trunks, and huge far-spreading crowns. 

 From this and the allied P. ihunbergii the Yellow-wood planking 

 and sleepers of South Africa are produced. The Cape Government 

 creosotes an average of 100,000 Yellow- wood sleepers yearly for use 

 on the railways. The old buildings in Cape Colony, Natal and the 

 Transvaal were commonly constructed of sawn Yellow-wood. 



It is found throughout the belt of heavy evergreen forest that 

 oceurs at intervals along the coast mountains that encircle South 

 Africa, rising in altitude as the latitude decreases, from the southern 

 coast to the Drakensberg of Natal and the mountains of the N.E. 

 Transvaal. Yellow-wood has the virtues and vices of other timbers 

 of its class, of which the New Zealand Kauri and Rimu are examples. 

 Yellow -wood is not too nard to be easily sawn and worked ; it is of 

 even structure and makes an excellent flooring board. But it is 

 liable to crack and warp, not tough, and being non-resinous very 

 perishable out-of-doors unless impregnated. 



As a forest tree, Yellow-wood is slow-growing, shade-bearing, 

 and with a fair natural reproduction. Little planting has been done, 

 as far more valuable timbers such as Cedar can be produced for the 

 cost of growing Yellow- wood : but Yellow-wood is carefully con- 

 served and reproduced naturally in the forests that are systematically 

 managed, and young trees are produced naturally in sufficient 

 abundance to ensure an increase rather than diminution of the supply 

 of these useful trees. 



PODOCARPUS THUNBERGII UPBJGHT YELLOW-WOOD. 



This Bpecies differs little from the larger Yellow-wood. When 

 cut up the planks of the two are doubtfully distinguishable. Up- 

 right Yellow-wood is a smaller, more tapering tree with a broader 



