Historical European Use
The European settlers used great quantities of puriri timber for fence posts, railway sleepers, shipbuilding and house blocks, as it is ground durable without treatment for 50 years or more (6, 12, 26). This, as well as the agricultural desirability of the soil in which it grew, led to the depletion of once widely spread lowland puriri forests(12), and by the mid 1940s the supply of puriri timber was almost exhausted(13). Puriri was also favoured for furniture and decorative wood work such as inlay veneers, as its appearance was "quite equal to the best Italian or American walnut"(14). Look at the New Zealand Geographic article on Seuffert & Son to see some good exaples of puriri use in furniture. Puriri timber was sometimes called New Zealand teak(13), oak(5, 16) or walnut(14).
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