Flora of New Zealand Series

Dacrydium taxifolium Banks et Sol. ex D. Don in Lamb. Pinus ed. 1, 2, 1824, 25, t. 7. (non P. taxifolia Kunth 1817).

Dacrydium? mai A. Cunn. in Ann. nat. Hist. 1, 1838, 213.

D. mayi Houtte ex Gord. Pin. 1858, 287.

P. matai Lamb. ex Hook. f. Handbk N.Z. Fl. 1867, 741.

Prumnopitys spicata Kent in Veitch Man. ed. 2, 1900, 157.

Matai. Black Pine.

Tree up to 25 m., trunk up to 1·25 m. diam., bark dark, falling in thick flakes. Juveniles with slender, flexuous, divaricating branchlets, lvs brownish, 5-10 × 1-2 mm., acute. Adults with lvs 1-1·5 cm. × 1-2 mm., subdistichous, linear, straight to subfalcate, obtuse, often apiculate, coriac., dark green, ± glaucous below. Male strobili in spikes, 3-5 cm. long, 10-30 per spike, ┴ axis; apiculus subacute. Ovules 3-10 per spike c. 4 cm. long, on short axillary branchlets; peduncle not swollen. Seeds 5-9 mm. long, subglobose, apiculus obtuse; black, drupaceous.

DIST.: N., S., St. Lowland forest, frequent except St.

Briggs and Loe (J. Chem. Soc. March 1950, 958-959) examined material of P. spicatus from the centre of North Island and found no kaurene, " the only diterpene isolated was phyllocladene in very small yield ". Butler and Holloway (J. Soc. Chem. Ind. 58, 1939, 223) from South Island material isolated a diterpene which they suggested was kaurene. Briggs, Cawley, Loe and Taylor (J. Chem. Soc. March 1950, 956) examined a sample of Butler and Holloway's isolation, and " It proved to be laevo-rotatory whilst the Debye-Scherer diagram indicated that it was a mixture of kaurene and isokaurene ". No clear-cut morphological differences between the plants of North and of South Island have been found.