360 A MISSION TO VITI. 



the hair and for painting native cloth black, or mixed 

 with a certain red earth to make a brown pigment. 

 Amongst the lower classes it is employed for tatooing 

 women instead of the juice of the Lauci fruit (Aleurites 

 triloba, Forst), resorted to by ladies of rank : the skin 

 being punctured with thorns of the shaddock tree. 



Besides the Dammara Vitiensis, Seem., there are five 

 other cone-bearing trees, all of which yield valuable 

 timber, viz. the Kau solo, the Gagali, the Kuasi, the 

 Kau tabua, and the Leweninini. The Kau solo repre- 

 sents a new genus peculiar to Fiji, and growing abun- 

 dantly in the southern parts of Viti Levu, where it 

 attains from sixty to eighty feet in height and nine feet 

 in girth. It has the appearance of the Yew, dark, lan- 

 ceolate leaves, about an inch long, and solitary nuts at 

 the ends of the branches. The Gagali (Podocarpus po- 

 lystachya^Si. Br.) is common on the banks of rivers. It is 

 never seen higher than thirty or forty feet, and on the 

 Navua I noticed that during the season when the river 

 overflows its banks, the trees must often be under water, 

 as dead twigs, leaves, and herbage, carried down by the 

 tide, were lodged in their crowns. The wood is pecu- 

 liarly elastic, and would probably do well for keels of 

 boats and schooners. The Kuasi (Podocarpus elata, R. 

 Br.) is confined to the summits of mountains, and forms 

 the chief vegetation of Voma peak, Viti Levu. Its wood 

 is used for outriggers of canoes. Another cone-bearing 

 tree is the graceful Kau tabua (Podocarpus cupressina, 

 R. Br.), common in the mountains of the Indian Archi- 

 pelago, and in Aneitum. Milne found it in Viti Levu. 

 Its native name is derived from the wood (Kau), re- 



