Agathis robusta (C.Moore ex F.Muell.) Bail.

Horticultural & Botanical History

‘D. robusta, C. Moore; F. Muell. in Trans. Pharm. Soc. Vict. ii. 174.  A tree, attaining a height of nearly 150 ft., the branches nearly verticillate.  Leaves ovate-lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, shortly acuminate or almost obtuse, rounded or tapering at the base and contracted into a very short petiole, 2 to 3 or rarely 4 in. long, rigidly coriaceous, very finely striate.  Male amenta about 1 1/2 in. long, sessile within a few broad orbicular or reniform bracts of about 2 lines diameter.  Fruitcones ovoid-gtobular, about 4 in. long and 3 in. diameter, the scales as broad as long, the lateral wings more or les indented on each side at the base so as to leave marginal deflexed auricles.  Seeds nearly ½ in. long, truncate or emarginate at the apex, one angle sometimes produced into a short broad point, the other into an oblong erect wing as long a the seed itself.—Parlat. in DC. Prod. xvi. ii. i75.

Queensland.  Scattered through the dense forest country near Wide Bay, Bidwill, and others.

It is probably though a slip of the pen that Parlatore (in DC. Prod. xvi. ii. 376) includes New Holland in the area of the Kauri Pine, D. autralis, Lam., for Mercury bay, the special station given, is in New Zealand.’  [FA vol.6, p.244].

History at Camden Park

Listed in the 1850 and 1857 catalogues [C.37/1850].  Discovered by John Bidwill.  Almost certainly grown from material collected by John Bidwill at Wide Bay and probably grown at Camden before it reached Europe or was botanically described by Charles Moore. 

Notes