Forest Plants. 181 
like it may occur merely as a shrub. The trunk is frequently buttressed at 
the base. The bark is, at first, thin and silvery, but eventually becomes 
furrowed. The head of the subalpine tree is small and open; the branches 
are frequently gnarled. The leaves are small, coriaceous, rather thick, bright- 
green, but yellowish in the mass and broadly ovate with crenate margins; on 
the undersurface are fringed domatia. The- species differs from all its New 
Zealand congeners in its glandular involucre which places it nearer the Tas- 
manian N. Cunninghamii and the Fuegian N. betuloides. It occurs from the 
Thames Mountains to Foveaux Strait from sea-level to the subalpine belt. 
Nothofagus fusca, in the lowlands, is a still larger tree than N, Mensiesii. 
It ascends only to the montane and lower subalpine belts. The trunk is fre- 
quentiy 2m in diam., covered with deeply furrowed bark and furnished at 
the base with massive plank-buttresses. The leaves are rather thin, 2.5 cm of 
more long, broadly ovate, bright-green and deeply serrate. North of the 
Auckland Peninsula, the species occurs most sparingly as far N. as Kaitaia, 
but is abundant in the Central and Southern provinces. 
The remaining species N. Blairii and N. apiculata are of limited and 
local distribution and need no special mention. 
b. Libocedrus Bidwillii Hook. f. (Pinac.) Pahautea; Cedar. 
Libocedrus Bidwillii is an evergreen conifer which hardly attains to more 
than ı2 m in the subalpine belt, but is frequently of smaller: dimensions. The 
trunk, covered with pale chestnut-coloured loose flaking bark, is remarkable 
straight and often some 54 cm in diam. The upper third of the tree consists 
of a dense, tapering conical head made up of short branches and leafy twigs 
forming somewhat horizontal layers. Adult and juvenile shoots are distinct, 
the latter having a row of flattened acute leaves some 3—4 mm long on each 
 flank, and an inconspicuous upper and under row of quite minute appressed 
 triangular leaves, the short branchlets looking like fern-pinnae. The ultimate 
‚shoots of the adult are tetragonous, 1.5 mm in diam. and their leaves closely 
appressed, triangular and minute. The species occurs on Mounts Te Aroha 
and Egmont, the Volcanic Plateau and the Dividing Range in the North Island 
and throughout the South Island in many parts of the mountain areas. 
ec. Phyllocladus alpinus Hook. f. (Taxac.) Mountain toatoa. 
Phyllocladus alpinus varies from a small tree some 7 m high with a trunk 
about 25 cm in diam., covered with a moderately smooth blackish bark to d 
Shrub ı—2 m tall. The branches are numerous and stout; they finally giva 
off many flexible straight, opposite branchlets which are naked for their lower 
half or third and then give off cladode-bearing stems. The cladodes, which 
exactly resemble leaves, are numerous, frequently arranged in threes, modera- 
tely close, patent or semi-vertical, pale-green, waxy beneath, thick, coriaceous, 
oblong to rhomboid in shape and variable in size. The flowers are monoe- 
 <ious. Seedlings bear true leaves, narrow-linear in shape and such occur on 
