382 Transactions.— Botany. 
this species is common “ at high altitudes on the west coast, but rare on the 
east coast of Otago,” and that “it grows to a height of from fifty to sixty 
feet, with a straight clear trunk two to three feet in diameter for two- 
thirds of the distance.” He adds, * A few trees are to be met with in the 
vicinity of Dunedin,” etc. Unless Mr. Blair has been led astray by the 
native name tanekaha being misapplied to P. alpina, it is difficult to 
account for this error, as the present species does not occur in Otago, and 
P. alpina, although plentiful in the district mentioned by him, is usually 
little more than a bushy shrub, and never attains dimensions at all 
approaching those of P. trichomanoides. 
Phyllocladus alpina. 
Hook. f., Fl. N.Z., L, p. 235, t. 53— Handbook, p. 260; Carr., Conif., p. 501; Gord., 
Pin., p. 139; Henk. and Hochst., Nadelholz, p. 373. 
P. trichomanoides, Don, var. alpina; Parl. in DC. Prodromus, XVI., pl. IL, p. 499. 
A monecious shrub or small tree, 5-20 feet high ; branches numerous, 
short, stout; cladodia crowded glaucous, very coriaceous, varying greatly 
in size—half an inch to an inch in length,—cuneate, or linear rhomboid, 
or linear oblong, almost entire or variously lobed or toothed, margin 
erose. Fl.: male—in terminal fasciculi of 3-5 small, shortly peduncled 
catkins ; female—on the margins of reduced cladodia or at the base of 
others ; ovules two to four; cup fleshy, and largely compressed. 
Hab. North Island: Ruahine Mountains—Colenso ; Tongariro— Bidwill, 
South Island: Common on the mountains ; sea level near Hokitika, 
ete.—T.K.  Ascends to 5,000 feet near Nelson (according to Bidwill.) 
The settlers in the South Island term this plant indifferently tanekaha 
and toa-toa. 
Easily distinguished by its bushy habit, its crowded simple cladodia 
and 3-4-seeded fruit; the nuts are inverted, with a membranous arillode 
which is developed considerably above the margin of the fleshy cup. 
The trunks of this species are used for levers by bushmen on the West 
Coast, but are rarely of sufficient dimensions to be valued for other purposes, 
except perhaps as fencing rails, for which their strength and durability 
would be well adapted. In the Handbook of the N.Z. Flora the trunk is 
said to be “sometimes two feet in diameter." I do not remember to have 
seen a specimen more than one-third of that size, and Mr. Buchanan informs 
me that his experience is the same. 
The young state of this plant closely resembles that of P. glauca, but 
the first formed cladodia are Shorter, broader, and more coriaceous in all 
Stages; it is easily distinguished from that species and from P. tricho- 
manoides, but I have no doubt that it will ultimately prove identical with the 
Tasmanian P. rhomboidalis, Rich., (P. aspleniifolia, Lab.), for although 
