40 OLEA MONTANA. 
been assured that specimens are found on the lower slopes of the Rimutaka 
Mountains fully equal in dimensions to the largest specimens of O. Cunninghamit, 
PROPERTIES AND UsEs. 
The timber is even in the grain, dense, compact, heavy, and strong, It is 
extremely durable, and it is to be regretted that its merits are but little known. 
It has been used for machine-beds, cart-shafts, and other wheelwrights’ 
work, also for the teeth of gearing-wheels, fencing-rails, &c. It is occasionally 
used by the cabinetmaker, and is valued for ornamental turnery. It seems well 
adapted to the purposes of the wood-engraver. 
This species would in all probability afford a valuable stock for the varieties 
of the cultivated olive (Olea Europea), 
DIsTRIBUTION OF THE GENUS. 
See under Olea apetala, ante, p. 38. 
DISTRIBUTION OF THE SPECIES. 
Olea montana is restricted to the North Island. It ranges from Whangaroa 
(north of the Bay of Islands) southwards to Cape Palliser. It 1s rare and local 
to the north of the Waikato, but is more plentiful in the southern part of the 
Island. It ascends from sea-level to 2,500ft. 
DESCRIPTION. 
Olea montana, Hook. f., Fl. N.Z., i., p. 176, t. 46. 
A round-headed dicecious evergreen tree, 50ft. high or more; branchlets 
numerous, slender, crowded. Leaves opposite, on short petioles, narrow-linear, 
obtuse or acute: on young plants, 3in. to gin. long; on mature plants, din. to 
3in. long, 4in. to din. wide; glabrous. Tips of branchlets sometimes puberulous. 
Flowers minute, in slender axillary racemes, six- to ten-flowered, pubescent ; 
pedicels slender, each with a minute bract at its base. Calyx membranous, 
unequally four-lobed. Male, stamens two, longer than the calyx. Female, 
ovary two-celled, glabrous; stigmas, two; ovules, two in each cell, pendulous. 
Fruit a drupe, linear-oblong, red. 
EXPLANATION OF PLatTes XXIX. AND XXX, 
XXIX. Olea montana, Hook. f., with female flowers. 1. Raceme of male 
flowers. 2. Calyx. 3. Stamens. 4. Longitudinal section of ovary. 5. Trans- 
verse section of ovary. 6. Longitudinal section of a young fruit, showing the two 
cells. 7. Transverse section of a fruit further advanced, with one cell partially 
obliterated. 8. Young fruit. All except 1 more or less magnified, 
XXX. Olea montana, Hook. f., with immature fruit. 
