﻿270 Trcmsactions. — Botany. 



The pohutiikawa {Metrosideros tomentosa) sometimes produces aerial roots 

 fi-om the main trunk, but these are usually small and appressed. Our Presi- 

 dent has informed, me of a remarkable instance on the west coast of the Great 

 Barrier Island ; the plant grows on the summit of a cliff and has given off a 

 root, now become an immense stem, which has travelled down the face of the 

 cliff some sixty or seventy feet to seek its nourishment in the soil at the base. 

 The example is so striking as to have received a special name from the Maoris. 



The only tree which the Rata seems powerless to injure is the puriri ( Vitex 

 littoralis) ; a fine example, surrounded by three or four large stems, which it 

 has forced outwards at the base, is to be seen on land belonging to Mr. W. C. 

 Daldy, by the Hotea River, Kaipara ; similar instances are rare. 



While on this subject I may be allowed to remark that our plant {M. 

 robusta) has been largely used of late years in the place of the pohutukawa for 

 shipbuilding ; it is therefore desirable that the attention of shipbuilders and 

 marine insurance companies should be drawn to the fact that for durability it 

 is infei"ior to the pohutukawa, or even to the rawiri or tea-tree. Should its use 

 be persisted in, considerable discredit will in a few years be brought on our 

 ship yards.* The Rata of the south (M. lucida) is not more durable, and has 

 the additional disadvantage of splitting with the slightest blow. It is remai'k- 

 able that the pohutukawa and the kauri, the timbers best adapted for ship- 

 building in the colony, are practically confined to the province of Auckland, 

 the former only having a single outlying habitat at Waitara in the province 

 of Taranaki. 



M. 7-obusta appears to have its centre of distribution in the Kaipara district, 

 where it is abundant, and attains a large size. It occui's from the North Cape 

 to Cook Straits, and has, I believe, been found in the province of Nelson. It 

 is, however, comparatively rare from the "Waikato southwards. 



I am informed by Sir Geoi'ge Grey that only a single specimen is known 

 on the island of Kawau, although it is abundant on the Great and Little 

 Barriers, Waiheke, and other wooded islands in the Ha^^raki Gulf. 



Art. XLVII. — On the Bota7iy of the Titirangi District of the Province of 



Auckland. By Thomas F. Cheeseman. 



[Read before the Auckland Institute, Z\st Jidy, 1871.] 



The Titirangi district may be defined as the tract of country bounded on the 

 north by a line drawn from the head of the Waitemata to the mouth of the 

 Miiriwai River, on the west by the sea, and on the south and east by the 

 * Since the above was written I have been informed by a well-known shipbuilder 

 that although M. rohusta is not durable when grown on low land or ia gullies, yet when 

 gi'own on hill sides it is equally durable Avith the pohutukawa. 



