Bram,.—On the Building Materials of Otago. 168 
its use, it would soon supersede the vague conventional term of *' red pine.” 
No. 7. Yellow Pine—Dacrydium colensoi. This tree is only found in 
small quantities on Pine Hill, Mount Cargill, and other east coast ranges, 
but is tolerably plentiful on the west coast. 
It is a small tree seldom exceeding forty feet in height, with a trunk 
twenty feet long and two feet six inches in diameter. It is remarkable in 
having frequently two distinet kinds of foliage on the same tree, that on 
the lower branches being flat and pendulous, and on the top ones round, 
rigid, and erect. The bark is like that of young red pine, but the timber 
is quite different. It is of a clear yellowish colour, with little sap, straight 
in the grain, dense in texture, and solid throughout; altogether one of the 
finest looking of our Otago pinewoods. 
The tree contains a large quantity of resinous matter, which cannot be 
expelled by artifieial drying with hot air. It burns freely, emitting a dark 
bituminous smoke, and a strong smell exactly like the knots of larch. 
Some Scandinavians near Mount Cargill attempted to extract pitch from 
the yellow pine, but I do not know if they succeeded. It is from this 
resinous property in the timber that the settlers’ name of tar-wood is 
derived. 
Yellow pine is employed in the North Island for ordinary building 
purposes, but on account of being scarce and of a small size it is little known 
in Otago as a timber tree. The durability of the wood is undoubted. 
Three-inch saplings used as piles in a Maori pah at Waimate are still as 
fresh as when driven 80 years ago. This wood seems admirably adapted 
for turning and other work of a similar kind where evenness of grain and 
density are desiderata. 
No. 8. Celery Pine—Phyllocladus trichomanoides. The genus to which 
the celery pine belongs only embraces three timber trees, one each in 
Borneo, Tasmania, and New Zealand. Our specimen is common in the 
northern provinces, and at high altitudes on the west coast, but rare on 
the east coast of Otago. There are, however, a few trees to be met with 
in the vicinity of Dunedin and from the Clutha southwards. 
The tree grows to a height of from fifty to sixty feet, with a straight 
clear trunk two to three fect in diameter for two-thirds of the distance. It 
is a remarkably handsome plant of the true pine shape. The leaves are 
quite different from the other conifers of Otago. Instead of a mere cluster 
of thin foliage, the tree is covered with large well-defined leaves like the 
common celery plant, from which the name is derived, but of a brownish 
colour. The bark is smooth and solid, dark on the surface, and of a uniform 
brown colour inside. It is known to be good for tanning, and the natives 
use it as a dye. The wood is soft, straight grained, tough and flexible, with 
