A ROUND-THE-WORLD BOTANICAL EXCURSION 4*9 



apples, peaches and cherries were in full bloom, for September is spring 

 and January is midsummer. 



There are splendid forests in the north island, but there are also 

 large areas covered by the bracken fern (Pteridium aquilinum) and 

 worthless, but very dense shrubs. "When once cleared, the ground is 

 valuable, for it is extremely fertile and the climate is ideal for raising 

 crops. New Zealand has a hearty welcome for the settler, and the 

 country is prosperous, so prosperous that it is hard to get a man to 

 carry a camera or collecting outfit, for every man has a job and every 

 boy is in school. I did not see a beggar in New Zealand. Women 

 vote under the same conditions as men and neither the country nor the 

 m women seem to have suffered any damage. 



After tramping for several days in the vicinity of Auckland, I 

 divided the rest of my time between the forests of Ohakune and 

 Owharoa, and the hot springs district about Eotorua. 



The forests about Ohakune consist principally of two conifers, 

 Podocarpus and Dacrydium, both large trees, reaching a diameter of 

 six or seven feet and a height of nearly 200 feet. The branching is 

 mostly in the upper third of the tree, and, consequently, the lumber, 

 which resembles white pine, is very clear. The saw mill at Ohakune 

 and the methods of lumbering are not on so large a scale as in our own 

 forests. A six-foot log must be split before it goes to the saw. 



Ohakune is a botanist's paradise. While there is no need of an ax 

 to clear the way, the forest is like a labyrinth and one must take great 

 care not to get lost. (Fig. 1.) In a Mexican forest one never gets 

 lost, because the necessary use. of the machete blazes a trail which one 

 can easily follow back; but in this labyrinth at Ohakune, without any 

 thread, I got lost within half a mile of my hotel. The tree ferns, 

 Dicksonia and Cyathea, are abundant, while smaller ferns cover the 

 ground and hang from the trees. In our own flora only two families 

 of ferns, the Osmundaceas and Polypodiacese, form any conspicuous 

 feature of the landscape; but at Ohakune all the seven time-honored 

 families are present and abundant. 



Snow falls every winter, often a couple of inches deep on the level. 

 This was a great surprise to me, for I had always associated the filmy 

 ferns and tree ferns with rather tropical conditions, but here the snow 

 collects in the nests formed by the crowns of the larger ferns, while it 

 •entirely covers the smaller filmy ferns. Two much-prized species, the 

 prince's feather (Todea superba), a magnificent fern almost never seen 

 in conservatories, and the kidney fern (Trichomanes reniforme) are 

 very abundant here. 



The object of the trip to Owharoa was to see the kauri forests (Fig. 

 2). The kauri (Agathis australis) is the most important timber tree 

 ■of New Zealand and it also furnishes the gum from which dammar 



