Synonyms. H, leucocephala, Dietr. Syn. PI. i, 531 (by a misprint) ; H. 
virgata R.Br. Prot. Nov. 26 (specimen collected 1817, towards the Lachlan River, 
A. Cunningham) ; Meissn. in DC. Prod, xiv, 395 ; H. tephrosperma R.Br. I.e. ; 
Meissn. I.e. 402 ; H. longicuspis, Hook, in Mitch. Trop. Austr., 397 ; Meissn. I.e. 
395 ; H. stricta F. Muell. ; Meissn. in Linncea xxvi, 360, and I.e. 400. 
Leaves. They are used for fodder, but form only a famine food. 
Cattle are fond of its leaves. (K. H. Bennett, Ivanhoe, vid Hay.) 
The pin-like leaves are eaten by stock, but slight nourishment could be 
expected from them. This is one of the many plants which sheep will eat when 
hard pushed, and nothing better is available. (R. W. Peacock, Coolabah.) 
Of little value as a fodder plant in Bourke district. (A. W. Mullen.) 
Mr. F. B. Guthrie, in Agric. Gazette N.S.W., October, 1899, gives an 
analysis with the following result : 
1 
1 
1 
& 
|P 
ri K ~ 
w . 
Albumin- 
oids. 
Carbo- 
hydrates. 
Nutrient 
Value. 
Albumin- 
oid ratio. 
Tannin 
(oak bark). 
16. Needlebuah 
12-59 
4-79 
39-09 
0-74 
6-44 
36-35 
44J 
1 :6 
1-5 
Timber. The timber is coarse grained and soft, but hard and brittle when 
dry. It is reddish and very ornamental, with the peculiar showy grain of so many 
Proteaceous timbers. 
The root-stock is carved for tobacco pipes, just as the briar-root (Erica 
arborea) of South Europe is. An enthusiast wrote to me : " The roots make the 
best wooden pipes in the world." This may be true, but it is safer to say that they 
make good pipes, and I have been assured on this point for the last twenty-five 
years. 
In the year 1895 the "Australian Needlewood Pipe Company" was formed 
in Sydney. 
A Water-yielding Tree. This has been referred to at Part LI, p. 16. 
Good drinking water is got from the fleshy roots of this bush in the dry districts in 
which it grows. The same method of obtaining it is employed as already described. 
In an experiment on a water-yielding Hakea, the first root, about half an inch in diameter and 6 or 
8 feet long, yielded quickly, and in large drops, about a wine glassful of really excellent water." (Lockhart 
Morton, Proc. Soy. Soc. Viet., 1860, p. 132.) 
Mr. Max Koch calls this tree " Kuluva," and says that in the Mount 
Lyndhurst district of South Australia, when hard up for water, the blacks get it 
from the root of this tree in the following way : First they burn the tree down in 
order to drive the moisture into the roots. Then they dig up the roots called 
" Nappa Kopari " that is, water root put an end into a slow fire, and the other 
into a vessel to receive the wnter which drips slowly from the roots. 
