"He lay
Couched in a rimu-tree one day."
1875. T. Laslett, `Timber and Timber Trees,' p. 306:
"The Rimu Tree. Height, eighty to 100 feet, fully forty to fifty feet clear of branches . . . moderately hard . . . planes up smoothly, takes a good polish, would be useful to the cabinetmaker."
1879. Clement Bunbury, `Fraser's Magazine,' June, p. 761:
"Some of the trees, especially the rimu, a species of yew, here called a pine, were of immense size and age."
<hw>Ring</hw>, <i>v. tr</i>. (1) To cut the bark of a tree round the trunk so as to kill it. The word is common in the same sense in English forestry and horticulture, and only seems Australasian from its more frequent use, owing to the widespread practice of clearing the primeval forests and generally destroying trees. "Ringed" is the correct past participle, but "rung" is now commonly used.
1846. J. L. Stokes, `Discoveries in Australia,' vol. i. c. x. p. 315:
"What they call ringing the trees; that is to say, they cut off a large circular band of bark, which, destroying the trees, renders them easier to be felled."
1862. H. C. Kendall, `Poems,' p. 56:
The gum-trees, ringed and ragged, from the mazy margins rise."