418 Transactions.—Botany. 
Of course the opinions here given are based merely upon the foliage 
specimens taken in connection with the facts stated, and therefore might 
possibly be modified on an examination of the timber. 
As a general rule small matai, say under 2 feet in diameter, must not 
be expected to prove of great durability, except perhaps when grown in 
rocky soils. 
The relative durability of timber produced by different trees of the same 
kind, depends upon two primary causes—age, which gives maturity, and the 
conditions of growth so far as they conduce to lignification or otherwise. 
It is a common idea amongst bushmen, that in matai, as in other New 
Zealand pines which produce the staminate and pistillate inflorescence 
upon separate trees, one form alone affords valuable timber, but unhappily 
they never agree as to which form produces the durable timber and which 
the worthless. As a matter of fact there is no evidence to show that either 
form is more valuable than the other, nor at present is there evidence to 
warrant the conclusion that any variety of matai affords more valuable 
timber than another: all the differences to whieh attention has yet been 
drawn may be shown to arise from the degree of maturity, conditions of 
growth, time of falling, seasoning, or some other cause capable of easy 
determination when the facts of the case are clearly ascertained. 
Art. LXIII.— Notice of the Discovery of Monoclea forsteri, Hook., in New 
Zealand. By T. Kr, F.L.S. 
(Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 2nd February, 1878.] 
In “Flora Nove-Zelandie " and ** The Handbook of the New Zealand 
Flora,” a plant of general distribution in this eountry is doubtfully 
described, in the absence of fruit, as Dwmortiera hirsuta, Nees, the speci- 
mens apparently differing from that plant only in their larger size. 
Fruiting specimens recently obtained near Wellington show that it is the 
long-lost Monoclea forsteri, Hook.* ( 4nthoceros univalvis, G.E. Forst., MS.), 
all our knowledge of which was obtained from Forster’s original specimens, 
and we were even destitute of exact information as to the locality in which 
it was collected. 
Monoclea is a monotypic genus, and with Calobryum forms a section of 
Hepatice characterized by the solitary unilocular sporangium destitute of 
a columella, and having the elaters carried away with the spores. 
* Musci Exotici, II., p. 174, 
