often forming the timber line, when it becomes a mere bush. The wood, though of no great size, is used for telegraph-poles, fencing-posts, railway sleepers, and wharf-piles, the heartwood being very durable in situations where it is exposed to alternations of dryness and moisture.
N. cliffortioides is extremely rare in cultivation. There are two specimens at Enys, Cornwall, which, according to Mr. John D. Enys, were 35 feet and 28½ feet high respectively in 1905; but when Elwes saw them in that year they were very slender and not thriving. These trees are semi-deciduous, most of the leaves, after turning brilliant red in autumn, falling off during winter; whereas, in New Zealand, the foliage is strictly evergreen. Another tree is growing at Messrs. Veitch's nursery at Coombe Wood, where it stands out of doors without any protection. It is very slow, however, in growth, and is only about 12 feet in height. (A.H.)
NOTHOFAGUS MENZIESII
- Nothofagus Menziesii, Oerstedt, Vidensk. Selsk. Skrift. V. ix. 355 (1873).
- Fagus Menziesii, J.D. Hooker, Icon. Plant. t. 652 (1844), and Flora New Zealand, i. 229 (1854); Kirk, Forest Flora New Zealand, 175, t. 89 (1889); Cheeseman, New Zealand Flora, 640 (1906).
An evergreen tree, attaining in New Zealand 100 feet in height and 15 to 25 feet in girth. Bark silvery-white, resembling that of the common English birch. Young branchlets covered with dense erect brown pubescence. Leaves (Plate 202, Fig. 9) persistent for two or three years, distichous on the branchlets, about ½ inch long, coriaceous, deltoid, ovate or rhombic; cuneate at the base, obtuse at the apex; glabrous; upper surface dark-green, shining; lower surface pale-green, with usually two (occasionally only one or none) small pits fringed with brownish hairs near the base of the midrib; lateral veins about three pairs; margin irregularly and doubly crenate; petioles short, pubescent. Male flowers solitary; calyx four- to six-lobed; stamens six to twelve. Fruit: involucre ¼ to ⅓ inch long, cleft into four narrow lobes, each with five transverse scales, cut to the base into recurved linear glandtipped processes; nuts three, one two-winged, two three-winged, the wings produced upwards into sharp points.
This species, which is known in New Zealand as the "silver birch" or "red birch," is common in the mountain forests of both the North and South Islands, ascending from sea-level to 3500 feet. The wood is dark-red, strong, and compact, and being easily worked, is suitable for making furniture.
A small tree of this species is growing in the Temperate House at Kew; and we are not aware that it has ever been tried in the open air. The tree has handsome foliage, and should be hardy in Cornwall and the south of Ireland. (A.H.)
