- Taxon
- Gallery
Dense tree 3–10–(15) m high, but usually much smaller. Bark dark and smooth. Ultimate branchlets very slender; shoots obscured by decurrent lvs. Juvenile lvs < 10 mm long, green. Adult lvs scale-like, ovate, green, decurrent; keel prominent, rounded or obtuse; apex free, acute. ♂ strobili 1–1.5 mm long, broad-ellipsoid; scales with papery brown margins at maturity. Mature ♀ cones 1–6, 7–12 mm diam. before dehiscence, ± globose; peduncles stout. Scales 6, thick, broadly rhomboid, the outer ones c. 1/2 length of others and more tapering towards apex; boss in upper ⅓ of scale, short and broadly conic or rhomboid; apex mucronate. Central column short. Seeds many, dark brown. Cones persisting for several years after dehiscence and sometimes enlarging in that time.
[From: Webb et al. (1988) Flora of New Zealand. Volume 4.]