146 Transactions —Miscellaneous. 
No. 8. Rata—Metrosideros lucida. This tree grows on high ground at 
Catlin River and the Longwood Ranges, but descends to sea level at the 
Bluff, Stewart Island, and the West Coast. It grows best on a light gravelly 
soil, and attains to a height of thirty or forty feet, and an extreme diameter of 
about six. Logs can be obtained twenty-four feet long and three feet diameter. 
The tree sometimes grows with a clear straight stem of this height, but fre- 
quently it divides into large branches three or four feet from the ground ; 
this kind furnishes valuable bent timbers for ship-building. Rata has a 
thin stringy bark like manuka, but larger leaves, and beautiful red flowers. 
The timber is the heaviest in Otago, being a little heavier than water. Itis 
very dense and solid, with little or no sap-wood, and of a dark red colour like 
mahogany. Although not nearly so strong, rata is suited for many of the 
purposes to which manuka is applicable, and has an additional advantage 
in being larger, straighter grained, and less liable to warp. Its dark colour 
might render it suitable for furniture, but I fear the absence of figure will 
be an objection. Hitherto rata has been little utilized. The construction 
of railway waggons at Invercargill, and the making of teeth and bushes, 
are almost the only purposes to which it has been applied, but the result is 
very satisfactory. The bearings of a water-wheel at Waikara are in good 
order after eighteen years’ service, and the railway waggons are pronounced 
equal to those made from imported timber. Mr. M‘Queen prefers rata to 
any other native wood for teeth and bushes. He says that manuka and 
kowhai do not wear so well—they wear off in grit or threads, whereas fric- 
tion only increases the glassy hardness of rata. 
Although this timber has not been used in situations that would test its 
durability, there is every reason to believe that it possesses this property to 
a considerable extent. I show a sample taken from an old log on a part of 
- the Kaihiku Ranges, where no living rata tree has existed since the settle- 
ment of the province. It is still quite sound, and there is a large quantity 
in the same condition. 
No. 9. Kowhai—Sophora tetraptera, Thisis the sole New Zealand repre- 
sentative of a large genus of the pea tribe, but it is intimately related to the 
well-known Clianthus of our gardens. The tree, which is of solitary habits, 
is found in shady damp situations and on light soils in all the seaboard 
forests. It grows to a height of about forty feet, and has a clear straight stem 
about twenty-five feet long, and from eighteen inches to three feet in diameter. 
It seldom exceeds two feet in the vicinity of Dunedin, but from that to three 
feet is quite common in Southland, particularly at Forest Hil. Kowhai 
when young has a smooth, tough, and stringy bark, which gets coarse and 
brittle as the tree approaches maturity. It has beautiful drooping foliage 
of a feathery appearance, and yellow flowers like laburnum. Altogether 
