158 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
A. C. Purdie informs me that there is a variety found at Catlin River not 
described by any of the botanists ; it is of a large size, with a smooth bark, 
and at very soft ornamental wood suitable for inside work. 
o. 4. Black Pine—Podocarpus spicata. Like its two congeners already 
EBEN this tree frequents all the low. lying forests of Otago, but it is more 
plentiful on the east than the west coast; the best supplies now available 
are at Catlin River and Southland. 
The tree grows to a height of from fifty to ninety feet, with a trunk 
twenty to thirty-five feet long and three to five feet in diameter; the latter, 
however, is an extreme size—four feet may be taken as the limit in ordi- 
nary cases. At Catlin River the sound trunks seldom exceed twenty-four 
feet in length and three feet in diameter. The appearance and properties 
of black pine have already been discussed in comparing it with miro, so it is 
only necessary to refer to the peculiarities of the former. The timber 
reaches maturity in about 400 years, and has about two inches of sap-wood 
when ripe. The tree is subject to a small heart-crack, which developes into 
decay when allowed to proceed, but the evil is not so great as in totara or 
cedar. Next to miro, this is the strongest and heaviest of the New Zealand 
pinewoods, and it is, without exception, the least given to warping and 
shrinking, and in all probability the most durable. It is suitable for all 
the purposes for which totara is adapted, as well as others where greater 
strength and solidity are required. 
Miro, having been frequently substituted for black pine in exposed 
situations throughout the province, has brought the latter into disrepute, 
and the resemblance is so great that professional men were afraid to run 
the risk of making a mistake. The consequence is that its good qualities 
are to this day little known and little appreciated. I show a portion of a 
fencing post cut and erected by Mr. Horman, at Makarewa, in June 1861, 
and taken up this month; the part most subjected to decay, that at the 
ground line, is perfectly sound. I have seen a black pine log, that had lain 
in the Waikiwi forest from time immemorial, as fresh as when it fell; it had 
been there so long that a fuchsia nine inches in diameter was growing 
across it. I show a few inches off the end of a log that lay for twelve years 
in a paddock at Seaward Bush ; the sap is all worm-eaten, but the heart, 
even to the end, is quite solid. Mr. M‘Arthur sent me, in 1872, a piece of 
a post that had been ten years in the ground at Waikiwi; the edges at the 
surface of the ground were almost as sharp as when split, and there were 
many more in that locality in the same condition. I have already referred 
to the sapling telegraph posts. Those of birch and totara were rotten 
through in twelve months, but the heart of the black pine ones, although 
very small, stood for five or six years; indced, it was nct decayed when the 
