in Extra-Tropical Countries. 375 



instances known to have attained a height of 325 feet, with a stem 

 22 feet in diameter; it furnishes a valuable building timber of a pale 

 or light-yellow color, susceptible of high polish. It is light, soft, 

 smooth and durable, and makes the finest sashes, doors, mouldings and 

 similar articles (Vasey); also used for shingles (Dawson). Canoes 

 carrying 4 tons have been obtained out of one stem. The bast can be 

 converted into ropes and mats. The tree can be trained into hedges 

 and bowers. It endures the climate of Christiania. To Thuya are 

 referred by Bentham and J. Hooker all the cypresses of the sections 

 Chama3cyparis and Retinospora. 



Thuya Japonica, Maximowicz. 



Japan. Closely allied to T. gigantea. Dr. Masters has pointed 

 out the characteristic differences between the two in an essay on 

 Conifers of Japan, published in the Journal of the Linnean Society, 

 1881. 



Thuya occidentalis, 



North-America, extending from Carolina to Canada. Northern 

 White Cedar or Arbor Vitse. A fine tree, to 70 feet high. Bears 

 the frosts of Norway northward to lat. 63 52'. The wood is reddish 

 or yellowish, fine-grained, very tough and resinous, light, soft, durable, 

 and well fit for building, especially for water-work and railway-ties, 

 also for turnery and machinery. Michaux mentions, that posts of this 

 wood last forty years; a house built of it was found perfectly sound 

 after sixty years. The tree prefers moist soil; it is valuable for 

 copses; it can also be trained into garden-bowers. Dr. Porcher says, 

 that it makes the finest ornamental hedge or screen in the United 

 States, attaining any required height and being very compact and 

 beautiful; such hedges indeed were observed by the writer himself 

 many years ago in Rio de Janeiro. The shoots and also an essential 

 oil from this tree are used in medicine; the bast can be converted into 

 ropes; the branches serve for brooms. 



Thuya Olientalis, Linn. (Biotia orientalis, Endlicher.) 



China and Japan. The Chinese " Arbor- Vitae" of gardens. 

 Though seldom exceeding 20 feet in height, this common garden-plant 

 is mentioned here, as it will admit of clipping for hedge-growth, and 

 as the "Fi-Moro" variety should on account of its elongated slender 

 and pendent branches be chosen extensively for cemeteries. 



Thymelsea tinctoria, Endlicher. (Passerina tinctoria, Pourret.) 



Portugal, Spain, South-France. A small shrub, which yields a 

 yellow dye. Cursorily it may be noted here, that some of the Aus- 

 tralian Pimelese contain a blue pigment, which has not yet been fully 

 tested. Their bark produces more or less of daphnin and of the volatile 

 acrid principle, for which the bark of Daphne Mezereum (Linne) is 

 used; these are remarkably developed in the South-Eastern Austra- 

 lian Pimelea stricta (Meissner). The bark of many is also pervaded 



2 B 



