DACRYDIUM CUPRESSINUM. 145 



Fonki of some authors) ; the others are distributed through New 

 Caledonia, the Fiji Islands, the Malay Peninsula and Borneo. The 

 essential characters of the genus are chiefly these : 



Flowers dioecious. Staminate flowers small, solitary and terminal, 



surrounded at the base by a few involucral bracts. Anthers sessile, 



crowded, spirally arranged around a central axis, two-celled, with an 



elongated peltate connective. 



Ovuliferous flowers terminal, solitary or in lax spikes, composed of 



one three or more thickened scales of which one, rarely two, bear an 



ovule, at first horizontal, but after fertilisation becoming erect and 



surrounded at the base by a fleshy aril. 



Fruit, a nut, usually of ovoid shape, seated on a fleshy or dry 



receptacle which is green or otherwise coloured, requiring (New Zealand 



species) more than a year to attain maturity. 



Two of the species are of great importance in their native 

 countries on account of their valuable timber, viz., the Kimu or Ked 

 Pine of New Zealand, Dacrydium cupres&inum, and the Huon Pine of 

 Tasmania, D. Frariklinii, both of which are cultivated in Great 

 Britain. Compared with these, the other species are of little value 

 or interest ; mention may, however, be made of D. laxifolium, one 

 of the smallest of Taxads, a weak straggling shrub common in the 

 mountain districts of New Zealand, and which is rarely found more 

 than a foot high ; and of D. Kirkii, the tallest of the New 

 Zealand species and the most local ; its habitat is restricted to the 

 extreme northern portion of the North Island. 



The generic name is derived from SaicpvSiov (diminutive of SaKpv, 



a tear), in allusion to the weeping habit of the species. 



Dacrydium cupressinum. 



A tall or medium-sized tree with a trunk varying in height from 

 40 to 80 feet, and in diameter from 2 to 4 feet, covered with 

 dark brown or grey-brown bark which falls away in thick scale-like 

 plates like those of the Scots Pine. Branches more or less pendulous 

 with distichous ramification, but becoming more spreading in old age. 

 Branchlets slender, elongated, alternate or opposite, and drooping like 

 their primaries, in old age shorter and recurved at the tip. Leaves 

 persistent four five or more years ; on young plants close-set and 

 spirally arranged around their axes, awl-shaped with a rather broad 

 decurrent base 0*25 0'5 inch long, spreading, dark green ; on 

 old trees much smaller, scale-like, trigonous and imbricated. Staminate 

 flowers green and inconspicuous on the tips of the erect or upturned 

 branchlets. Ovuliferous flowers solitary, terminal. Seeds about one- 

 eighth of an inch long. 



Dacrydium cupressinum, Solander in Forster's Plant, esculent. 80 (1786). L. 0. 



Richard, Mem. sur les Conif. 16, t. 2, fig. 3 (1826). Endliclier, Synops. Conif. 



225 (1847). Carriere, Traite Conif. ed. II. 691. Parlatore, D. C. Prodr. XVI. 



494. Hooker til, Handb. N. Zeal. Fl. 258. Gordon, Pinet. ed. II. 104. Kirk, 



Forest Fl. N. Zeal. 29, tt. 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. Masters in Journ. R. Hort. Soc. 



XIV. 209. 



N. Zeal, vernacular, Rimu, Red Pine. 



