GORDITS.

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 785, 17 November 1922, Page 4

GORDITS.

(Contributed). The paragraph in last Tuesday’s Times referring to the mineral substances resembling pearls found occasionally in the joints of bamboos and other tropical plants, reminds me of that extremely rare article known as a gordit. It is well known that trees extract minute particles qf silica from the soil, which adhefe to the walls of the sap pores. What is not so well known is that sometimes, but very rarefy* the tree segregates a quantity of these particles in a matrix, in the same way as cattle segregate those closely felted balls of hair sometimes found in their stomachs. In England they have been found in oaks, but not in any other tree that I /am aware of. Th'd only one the writer lias ever seen was found on the Kainga'roa Plains embedded in a piece of petrified wood. It was about as large *as a medium-sized walnut, and composed of reddish-brown translucent silica. Strangely enough the petrified wood in which it was embedded proved to be* when put under a lens, of some species of palim now long* extinct in New Zealand. It is not; generally known that the cocoanut palm grew here, showing how much more tropical our climate once was, and it is possible that this gdrdit was secreted ages ago by one of that variety*