418 Transactiuvs. — Botany. 



Of course the opinions here given are based merely upon the foliage 

 specimens taken in connection with the facts stated, and therefore might 

 possibly be modified on an examination of the timber. 



As a general rule small matai, say under 2 feet in diameter, must not 

 be expected to prove of great durability, except perhaps when grown in 

 rocky soils. 



The relative durability of timber produced by different trees of the same 

 kind, depends upon two primary causes — age, which gives maturity, and the 

 conditions of growth so far as they conduce to lignification or otherwise. 



It is a common idea amongst bushmen, that in matai, as in other New 

 Zealand pines which produce the staminate and pistillate inflorescence 

 upon separate trees, one form alone affords valuable timber, but unhappily 

 they never agree as to which form produces the durable timber and which 

 the worthless. As a matter of fact there is no evidence to show that either 

 form is more valuable than the other, nor at x^resent is there evidence to 

 warrant the conclusion that any variety of matai affords more valuable 

 timber than another : all the differences to which attention has yet been 

 drawn may be shown to arise from the degree of maturity, conditions of 

 growth, time of falling, seasoning, or some other cause capable of easy 

 determination when the facts of the case are clearly ascertained. 



Art. LXIII. — Xotice of the Discovery of Monoclea forsteri. Hook., in New 

 Zealand. By T. Kirk, F.L.S. 

 [Read before the Wellmgton Philosophical Society, 2nd February, 1878.] 

 In "Flora Novse-ZelandiaB " and "The Handbook of the New Zealand 

 Flora,'' a plant of general distribution in this country is doubtfully 

 described, in the absence of fruit, as Diimortiera hirsuta, Nees, the speci- 

 mens apparently differing from that plant only in their larger size. 

 Fnxiting specimens recently obtained near Wellington show that it is the 

 long-lost Monoclea forsteri, Hook.* ( Anthoceros univalvis, G.E. Forst., MS.), 

 all our knowledge of which was obtained from Forster's original specimens, 

 and we were even destitute of exact information as to the locality in which 

 it was collected. 



Monoclea is a monotypic genus, and with Calobryiim forms a section of 

 HepaticcB characterized by the solitary unilocular sporangium destitute of 

 a columella, and having the elaters carried away with the spores. 



* Musci Exotici, 11., p. 174. 



