PODOCARPUS HALLII, »-s. 
LARGE-LEAVED TOTARA. 
OrDER—CONIFERZE. 
SECTION—PODOCARPE#. 
Plates IX. and IXa. 
Unrit last year this tree was considered identical with Podocarpus Totara, its 
distinctive characters having escaped the notice of botanists, chiefly on account 
of the difficulty of procuring good specimens of the flowers and fruit for examina- 
tion—a difficulty somewhat aggravated by the fact that in all the species of the 
genus the male and female flowers are produced on different trees. Hitherto it 
has been impossible to account for the difference in durability exhibited by 
totara from different localities in the same district, apparently of the same age, 
and grown under the same conditions of soil, aspect, and altitude; but the 
existence of two species closely resembling each other in external characters, yet 
differing in the quality of the timber, at once disposes of the greater portion of 
the difficulty. . 
Podocarpus Hallii, when fully developed, forms a large dicecious tree, some- 
times 6oft. high, with a trunk from aft. to 3ft. in diameter, clothed with thin 
papery brown bark. In young plants the branches are slender and give off 
branchlets at right angles to the main axis; the leaves are arranged in two rows, 
and are frequently 1din. in length. As the tree approaches maturity the 
branches and leaves become more erect, while the latter are arranged in several 
rows and densely crowded on the branchlets; they are invariably less than an 
inch in length: the mid-rib is prominent beneath. 
The male flowers are developed in solitary catkins, which are shortly 
stalked, and produced in the axils of the leaves: when the anthers are fully 
developed the yellow tinge of the pollen attracts attention, but the female flowers 
are of the same hue as the leaves, and can only be found by close search. ‘This 
species differs from the true totara in the thin papery bark, the larger leaves, and 
the pointed fruits. 
The minute female flowers are produced in the axils of the leaves, and are 
of very simple structure. They are solitary and carried on short peduncles, 
each flower consisting of two carpellary leaves with an ovule attached near the 
apex of each or of one only. After fertilisation the ovule develops into a nut, 
which contains the seed. The carpellary leaves become swollen and pulpy, 
and at length assume a bright-red colour. 
The existence of two kinds of totara, although now determined for the 
first time, has long been suspected. When investigating the botany of the 
Thames Goldfield in 1869 I collected specimens of the present plant, some of 
which I forwarded to Kew for examination; but, in the absence of flowers or 
fruit, it was not possible to separate them from the ordinary kind. But, in order 
to determine the question, Mr. J. W. Hall, of Shortland, obtained a few young 
plants of each form from the ranges, and cultivated them in his shrubbery : 
