A LETTER FROM MAORI-LAND. 27 



purposes, and a multitude of articles, from cloth and ropes, to the 

 walls of their huts, are or were made from it 



Any mention of New Zealand plants would be quite incomplete 

 without reference to that noble native tree, the Kauri gum, Dain- 

 mara Australis (Lambert). This splendid tree is at once the 

 monarch and the chief glory of the New Zealand forest. It 

 grows to an enormous height, 150 feet being frequently reached, 

 the circumference being commonly 30 feet. Logs of 60 feet are 

 often cut. Mr. Griffin alludes to one tree on Totamoe Mountains, 

 the trunk of which is ()6 feet in circumference or 22 feet in dia- 

 meter. The Kauri tree is exclusively confined to the northern 

 portion of the North Island, being found nowhere else. The 

 trunk is a beautiful clean column, crowned with a graceful head of 

 dense foliage. The leaves are short and flat, and the cones are 

 very small in proportion to the size of the tree. When a notch is 

 cut in the bark, the semi-liquid gum exudes, exactly as in the case 

 of the pine tree. The gum quickly hardens by exposure ; when 

 fresh, it has an aromatic taste, and is largely used by young people 

 as a kind of sweetmeat. It appears to be formed in large 

 masses in or about the roots of the trees, and all the Kauri gum 

 of commerce is obtained by digging it out of the earth at those 

 places where years before the trees have lived and died. There 

 is some mystery about the ultimate destination of the gum, but 

 the great bulk of it is exported to America, where it is used as an 

 ingredient in the preparation of varnish. We suppose, also, that 

 a portion finds its way into commerce as Gum Dammar. 



The Kauri tree sheds its bark and branches in a curious 

 manner. The branches and twigs die and drop clean off, leaving 

 a regular scar exactly similar to that left by the petiole when ordi- 

 nary trees shed their leaves. The bark is shed, not in irregular 

 pieces, but in what we can term nothing else than regular scales. 

 These flakes, or scales, of bark become detached all round, and 

 then drop off; they strongly remind us of the scales of a fish. It 

 is, however, as a timber tree that the Kauri stands unexcelled. 



The wood is almost exclusively used in New Zealand for all 

 manner of outdoor and indoor work, it takes a beautiful polish, 

 more especially in the knotty parts, and is suitable for cabinet and 

 other fine work. 



