DACRYDIUM BIDWILLII, Hook. f. 
THE MOUNTAIN-PINE. 
OrpER—CONIFERZ. 
TRIBE—TAXE-. 
(Plate XXXVII.) 
Tuis charming mountain-pine has until recently been confused with other 
species of Dacrydium, and was first described by the present writer in ‘‘ The 
Transactions of the New Zealand Institute” for 1877,* the specific name being 
attached at the suggestion of Sir Joseph Hooker, who stated that specimens 
collected in the Nelson District by Bidwill were preserved in the herbarium at 
Kew. . 
Dacrydium Bidwillii is a small species forming a handsome conical or dome- 
shaped shrub, from 2ft. to raft. high, with a very short trunk rarely exceeding 
rft. in diameter, and usually only a few inches, with spreading, often horizontal, 
branches. ‘The mountain-pine is remarkable for the great difference exhibited 
by its leaves at different periods of growth. In the young state they are 
linear, flat, crowded, and spreading, }in. long, but in the mature state they 
resemble minute, close-set green scales, keeled on the back, and overlapping 
-each other like the scales of a fish. There is no resemblance between the leaves 
of the early and mature states, so that, while the first resemble those of the 
mountain totara, the second might easily be mistaken for those of a cypress. 
The male and female flowers are produced on separate trees. The male 
catkins are carried on the tips of the branchlets, and are from gin. to #oin. in 
length, but differ considerably from those of Dacrydium cupressinune in structure : 
instead of the green anther-scales with long points, the scales are short, obtuse, 
brown, and the catkins ovate. The female flowers are solitary or in twos, below 
the tips of the branchlets. The nuts are very small, compressed, and the invo- 
lucral cup sometimes becomes fleshy, white, and smooth. 
This species exhibits two principal forms, which are so closely connected 
that they can scarcely be kept apart even as varieties. In a, erecta, the plant 
has a conical outline, the flat leaves are obscurely ribbed, and the fruiting 
branchlets very slender: in £, reclinata, the plant 1s prostrate or with spreading 
horizontal branches, and the flat leaves have a distinct mid-rib, the fruiting 
branches being rather stout. 
The linear flat leaves are green when fresh, but change to a light-brown in 
drying, or, in some cases, to a reddish-black. 
In the Te Anau district, where this species is plentiful, it is termed ‘‘ bog- 
pine” or ‘‘tar-wood”’ by the shepherds, but does not seem to have received a 
distinctive name elsewhere. 
On flats by the Thomas River, Canterbury, a number of remarkable speci- 
mens of var. reclinata occur, forming rounded clumps from aft. to 5ft. high, and 
from toft. to 20ft. in diameter, growing in a regular and symmetrical manner : 
* Trans. N.Z. Inst. x., p. 388. 
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