PHYLLOCLADUS GLAUCA, Carriére. 
THE TOATOA. 
OrpER—CONIFER/A. 
TRIBE—TAXEZ. 
(Plates XCVIII. and XCIX.) 
Wuen speaking of this fine tree Sir Joseph Hooker enthusiastically designated 
it “the most charming of all the New Zealand pines’’—a tribute of admiration 
well merited by its beauty and attractiveness. Although extremely local in its 
distribution and restricted to a narrow area, it is singular that it should have 
escaped the notice of botanists until a very recent period. It was described as 
Phyllocladus glauca about 1865 by Carriére, but so little was known about it that 
it was supposed to have come from Tasmania.* Fruiting specimens were first 
collected by the writer during 1865, but its dicecious character was not detected 
until 1867. Specimens collected on the Great Barrier Island at that date were 
forwarded to Professor Parlatore, who considered it to be a variety of P. tricho- 
manoides, and described it as var. B, glauca, of that species, in his review of the 
Conifere for De Candolle’s ‘‘ Prodromus.’’ A more detailed description was 
given by the writer in 1877. 
The old Maoris in the North distinguished it as ‘‘toatoa,’’ a name also 
applied to the next species, P. alpinus; but the younger Maoris term it ‘‘ tane- 
kaha,” confusing it with P. trichomanoides. 
The toatoa is a handsome tree, 2oft. to 4oft. high, with a trunk r2in. to 
r8in. in diameter, and remarkably stout branches, which are frequently whorled. 
As stated under P. trichomanoides,t in this genus true leaves are only produced 
in the young state: they are from 4in,. to 3in. long, and about $in. broad, flat 
and rounded at the tip, or, rarely, terminating in a sharp point: they usually fall 
away before the third year. Leaves of a similar character, but rather broader, 
are produced at the base of new terminal shoots in the early spring, but dis- 
appear very quickly. The large foliaceous expansions which resemble ordinary 
pinnate leaves are termed ‘cladodes,” and are in reality strangely-modified 
branchlets; which is proved by the female plants producing flowers and fruit in 
their place, or, rarely, on their margins. The cladodia are arranged on each side 
of a rhachis, which is a modified branchlet from 5in. to Ift. in length: these 
modified branchlets are developed in whorls, and are mostly abortive; but 
usually the rhachis of one or more cladodes of a whorl becomes elongated, 
forming a new branch with a new whorl at its apex, and the following spring the 
process is repeated from the new whorl. From five to ten form a whorl, each 
cladode presenting the appearance of a pinnate leaf, with from five to eight pairs 
of cladodes, with or without a solitary terminal cladode: they vary in size from 
#in. to 2in. long, and from Jin. to r4in. broad: they are of a pale bluish-green 
when young, rhomboid in shape, lobed or toothed, and narrowed into a short 
s] 
* Trans. N.Z. Inst., x., p. 380. + See page 9, ante. 
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