Manual of the New Zealand Flora.

1. Agathis, Salisb

1. Agathis, Salisb.

Evergreen monoecious or diœcious trees, often of great size. Leaves subopposite or alternate, broad, flat, coriaceous; nerves parallel. Male flowers solitary, axillary, peduncled; peduncle furnished with imbricate scales at the top. Anthers densely spirally arranged on a cylindrical column; cells 5–15, pendulous from the top of a rigid stipes. Female cones terminating short branchlets, broadly ovoid or globose; scales densely spirally arranged, tips broad. Ovules solitary or rarely 2 at the base of each scale and adnate to it, reversed. Mature cone globose or nearly so; scales closely imbricating and appressed, broad, flattened, hard bu, scarcely woody. Seeds 1 to each scale, very rarely 2, reversedt compressed, ovate or oblong; testa thin, produced into a membranous wing; albumen fleshy; cotyledons 2.

A genus of 6 or 7 species of timber-trees, ranging through the Malay Archipelago, north-east Australia, the Pacific islands, and New Zealand. The New Zealand species is endemic, although stated by Parlatore (D.C. Prodr. xvi. 2, 376) and Eichler (Naturlichen Pflanzenfamilien ii. 1, 67) to occur in Australia.