28 FOREIGN KAURI TREES. 
a 
QUEENSLAND Kavtnris. 
Queensland Kauri (Agathis robusta) 1s the millers’ favourite soitwood, 
It is a good, sound, clear, white-pine timber, but not in the samme class 
as the New Zealand Kauri. It was thus described by R. R. Grundy at 
the Melbourne Timber Conference of 1916 :— i, 
Queensland Kauri is sotter than New Zealand Kauri timber. | ar tree, 
though smaller than the New Zealand Kauri, 1s the largest Conifer on the Aus. 
tralian Continent! It provides the trade with wide boards free from knots or 
other defects, and stands alone in this respect among the pine softw oods ot 
Australia. For mouldings, turnery, and general joimery work it is considered 
to be one of the best of softwoods. The timber is easily worked and seasons well. 
It can be easily stained to any colour, but is more difficult to polish than New 
Zealand Kauri owing to its more porous texture, 
The mature timber of the Queensland Government forests and the 
timber on private holdings is now nearly all cut out. There js a felling- 
limit in Government forests in Queensland of 28 in. diameter. _Queens- 
land Kauri does not grow as dense as does New Zealand Kauri in full 
“stand.’? Thus, although the Queensland tree is inferior to New Zea- 
land Kauri, there is none of the irrational indiscriminate destruction of 
Kauri that is going on in New Zealand, 
The Queensland Conservator, Mr. W. N, Jolly, informs me that this 
southern Queensland Kauri ‘‘ coppices splendidly ’’ up to 2 in. diameter. 
He adds, ‘‘ When the soil is hght, when there is not much undergrowth 
or too many wallabies, natural regeneration is good. But the young 
trees must be given light, and when this is done there is lable to be 
a bad growth of weeds and ground herbage.’’ 
There are several specimens of this Kauri in the Auckland parks, 
where, at any rate in youth, it grows as well as the native Kauri. One 
of these is shown in Plate V. Its resin is inferior to New Zealand Kauri 
resin. 
Agathis palmerstont is the giant Kauri of tropical Queensland. It 
may grow as high as New Zealand Kauri, but its maximum diameter 
is about half that of New Zealand Kauri, The Conservator of Forests 
writes to me: ‘‘ The Queensland Kauri of the north cannot compare 
with that of New Zealand in size. Clean boles with us might run as 
high as 100 ft., but the largest-girthed tree I have seen or heard of 
Was about 12ft. in diameter, It grows freely from seed, but the 
tropical undergrowth is troublesome. The seed from neither Kauri 
will keep, but must be used straight from the trees.”’ 
There are two or three species of Kauri in the mountain forests of 
Borneo, one of these not yielding resin, and another with lumps of 
naturally exuded resin at the base. 
Kauri Disrrisurion. 
Says Mr. T. F. Cheeseman in his lecture on the Kauri tree: ‘* There 
are at least eight well-established species of Kauri. 
two species in New Caledonia, and one. 
There are two in the New Hebrides, two 
with a wide range stretching from N 
Islands and from Borneo to the Malay Peninsula.’”’? This shows an 
extended north-and-south distribution and a comparatively esate east- 
and-west one. (Auckland Institute.) : 
The Kaurt of South Africa.The tree of the South African forests 
eich ra si se longevity, and size so much resembles Kauri is the ‘large 
ellow-wood Podocarpus elongata. It grows to the size of a big Kauri, 
Nearest to ours come 
or possibly two, in Fiji. 
in Queensland, and finally one 
ew Guinea to the Philippine 
