182 Transactions. —Miscellaneous. 
Arr. XL—On the Durability of Matai Timber. By Joun Bucuanan. 
[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 29th July, 1876.) 
Plate III. 
Ox a recent visit to Otago my attention was called to a large prostrate 
tree on a piece of new cleared bush land near Mount Cargill, North-east 
Valley, Dunedin. à 
The circumstances which prove that this tree has been exposed for at 
least 800 years, in a dense damp bush, under conditions most favourable 
to decay, and the fact that it is still sound and fresh, are worthy of record 
as showing the great durability of some of our New Zealand timbers. 
The proof of the actual time which has elapsed since this tree fell rests on 
the fact that its trunk is enfolded by the roots of three large trees, which 
must have grown from seed after its fall. The three enfolding trees are all 
Griselinia littoralis, three feet six inches in diameter. They have been 
recently felled with the axe, and their growth rings count over 900, thus 
approximating 800 years, during which the enclosed timber has remained 
so fresh and sound that it has since been split into posts for fence stuff. 
The most casual visitor to the New Zealand bush must have observed 
the rich epiphytical growth of young plants on fallen trees. After a few 
years these begin to throw their roots on both sides, and take hold of the 
earth, thus gradually enfolding the prostrate trunk in the process of 
growth 
A microscopical examination of the timber of the fallen tree proved it 
to be Podocarpus spicata (matai). The measurement of the trunk is 185 feet 
long, and three feet in diameter at the base; and as the sap-wood and 
branches are gone, it must have measured when alive at least 160 feet in 
height, with a diameter of four feet. 
The wood is close grained and heavy, and of a dark reddish-brown 
colour, and the yearly growths very narrow and numerous, showing 88 rings 
to an inch. The semi-diameter being eighteen inches gives for heart-wood 
alone a period of 1586 years,* and with sap-wood growths added at the lowest 
estimate, a total age for this tree of 1880 years. If to this again be added 
the 300 years during which it has lain prostrate, we have a period of 2180 
years, within which no great disturbance of the forest has taken place in 
the immediate neighbourhood of Dunedin. 
* Calculated on the accepted experience in Europe of annual rings of growth for coni- 
ferous trees. 
