12 



Riferences. —Brand. VI N. W. & C. 1, 435, Diet. Ec. Prod, of India. 

 Gam!)- Man. of Timb. 665. Cameron's For. Trees of Mysore and 

 Coorg, joo. Agr. Bull. S. S. & F. M. S. (II. N. Ridley) Vol. I, Nos. 

 7 & 8. Roy. As. Soc. Journ. St. Br. No. 30 of 1897 ( H - N. Ridley). 

 Agr. Ledg. (India) 1901 VIII & 1902 II. 



Popular Names\ — The "Swamp Oak" of Queensland, the u Ti- 

 nian-Pine," "Beef wood-Tree," Vern. " Aru" "Ru" and "Ru-Laut." 



It is a tall evergreen tree, maximum height 80 feet and girth 

 6 feet and over. Conical in habit of growth. 



B ar k, — Brown, rough, fibrous peeling off in vertical strips. The 

 bark is astringent and contains in to 18-3 per cent of tannin, 

 giving a blue black precipitate with feric salts. It is used by fisher- 

 men in Madras for dyeing their nets. It contains also a red colour- 

 ing matter attracted by mordants. The burnt ashes of the bark 

 afford material for making soap. The decoction being of a deep 

 red colour. 



Leaves. — According to BRAND IS, branches leafless. CAMERON 

 says the " h aves proper" reduced to mere scales at the tips of the 

 branchlets. Disarticulate a branchlet and its upper end will be 

 seen to be toothed usually 79 teeth referred to by CAMERON as 

 scaly leaves." The former description is preferred. 



Branchlet jr.— Approximate, slender, articulate, fluted, deciduous 

 and fulfil the function of leaves (Brandis). The general appear- 

 ance of the branchlets feathery. 



Flowers. — Monoecious, i.e., with staminate and pistillate flowers, 

 and quite inconspicuous, slightly reddish in colour. The staminate 

 Mowers monandrons in terminal, cylindrical spikes ; the pistillate 

 flowers in small pedicellate, globose heads. 



Fruit.— A sub-globose cone, formed of the enlarged and thick- 

 ened woody bracts, rough, varying from \ to f of an inch in length, 

 grows in clusters at ends of branches. It turns orange yellow when 

 ripe; seeds with a membranous wing. Fruit to be seen pretty 

 nearly throughout the year at various stages of maturity. 



Thus from its conical habit of growth, feathery branchlets, cone- 

 like fruit and winged seed the resin it yields, it suggests the pine 

 family, hence the popular name "Tinian Pine," on the other hand 

 the Malay more familiar with the Casuarina curiously enough calls 

 Dacrydium datum, Wall. [Conifers?) a cypress like plant which 

 attains a similar maximum height, " Ru Bukit." 



Distribution. — Indigenous to Queensland, N. Australia, the Ma- 

 lay Archipelago, Fiji, the Islands of the Indian Archipelago, the 

 littoral of Chittagong, Burma and Siam. Mr. L. RlCKETTS, In- 

 spector-General of Forests, Mysore, thinks it truly indigenous to the 

 Islands of the Malay and Fijian Archipelago and says in India 

 "the species has not been observed to be self produced, i.e., in the 

 matter of throwing up seedlings, nor does it coppice well." Ex- 

 tensively planted along the sand dunes of the Madras and N. 

 Kanara Coast-. It might be compared to Finns sylvestris, L. 



