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Timber. The first published account of this tree, from an economic point of 
view, was in regard to its timber, the late Mr. (afterwards Sir) William Macarthur 
having sent a log of it to the Paris Exhibition of 1855. It was numbered 81, and was 
accompanied (as most of his specimens were), by herbarium specimens. These enabled 
the illustrious Bentham to identify the timber as that of D. myoporoides, although, 
such were the difficulties of obtaining Australian botanical information sixty-five years 
ago, it had been labelled Santalum obtusifolium. With Myoporum acuminatum it shared 
the aboriginal name of " Ngmoo," but the following information, supplied by Sir 
William, makes no allusion to the properties of the leaves : " Diameter, 10-16 inches; 
height, 15-20 feet. A low-branching small tree, with rough cork-like bark; the wood 
very white, close, and soft, but firm; excellent for wood-carving, and not without 
beauty for inlaying and cabinet-work." Sir William Macarthur was a cyclopaedia of 
knowledge. in regard to the uses to which the blacks put the indigenous vegetation, 
so that the omission of any allusion to the properties of the leaves shows that he was 
most likely unaware of them. 
The late Mr. Macpherson, teacher of wood-carving in the Technical Collegs, 
informed me in the early nineties that he was using large quantities of this wood, and 
was much pleased with it. Its colour is pleasing, and it has no figure to speak of. 
Like many other pale-coloured softish timbers, it is apt to be discoloured by " bluing," 
the work of a fungus, of whose life history we know very little. When a tree has to be 
cut down, the timber should always be preserved, in order that it may be utilised for 
carving. It is light in weight (hence one of its names, Corkwood), being only about 
30 Ib. per cubic foot when dry. 
In my former official positions as Curator of the Technological Museum and 
Superintendent of Technical Education, I never let an opportunity slip of testing 
native timbers in the wood- working classes at the Technical College, and such 
propaganda work has never been more wanted than now. 
Size. Usually a small tree with a height of 15 to 25 feet, and a diameter of 6 to 
10 inches. Baron Mueller, however, quotes a Mr. Ralston (Select Extra Tropical Plants) 
as stating that it attains a height of 60 feet in deep forest glens, but I have not seen 
it so high. 
Habitat. From the Shoalhaven River in New '^South Wales, along the 
coast belt, in brushes chiefly, to Northern Queensland. It also extends to New 
Caledonia. 
Following are New South Wales localities quoted in the Flora Australiensis. 
It was not known from Queensland when that work was published. Port Jackson to 
the Blue Mountains (R. Brown, Sieber, No. 259, and many others) ; Sydney woods, 
Paris Exhibition, 1857 (Macarthur, No. 81); Hastings and Clarence Rivers (Beckler); 
Port Macquarie (Fraser); Richmond River (Henderson); southward to Illawarra 
(A. Cunningham, Ralston). 
B 
