16 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



remarkably strong growth of poroporo sprang up, and for 

 many miles both sides of the road were bordered with this 

 plant, which in its turn afforded temporary shelter for many 

 shrubs and young trees, amongst which the totara was 

 remarkably frequent. On the west coast of the South Island, 

 much of the lowland forest when burnt off is temporarily 

 replaced by a robust growth of a large native groundsel 

 {Erechtites jirenanthoides , DC), which often attains the height 

 of 5ft., most of it, however, disappearing before the close of the 

 third year, when its place is taken by fern or, more rarely, by 

 shrubs and trees. When the road from Nelson to the BuUer 

 was formed through the Hope Valley, about 1870, the burnt 

 area on each side of the road-line was thickly dotted with the 

 rare pine, Podocarpiis actctifolitcs (T. Kirk), although very few 

 specimens of the plant were to be seen in the immediate 

 vicinity. It is, however, already overgrown by larger trees to 

 a considerable extent, and affords an instance of a phenomenon 

 often observed by foresters in Europe, where certain plants, as 

 Pyrola minor (L.) and P. rotunclifolia (L.), make their appear- 

 ance in forests which have recently been thinned, and, after 

 increasing for three or four years, gradually die out, to reappear 

 after the next periodical thinning. Much, however, has yet 

 to be learned with regard to phenomena of this kind in New 

 Zealand. 



Destbuction of Kaubi Foeests. 



It is now proposed to trace the principal lines along which 

 injury has been done to the flora, and at the outset to glance 

 at the agency of man. So far as the necessary results of clear- 

 ing land for cultivation are concerned, thay are sufficiently 

 obvious, and have already been mentioned. But they are 

 greatly aggravated and intensified when attention is attracted 

 to the economic value of certain timbers, and the forest is 

 felled at the demand of commerce : the giant kauris, whose 

 branches were waving high in the air long before the civilisa- 

 tion of the "West was called into existence, are thrown down, 

 and these grand trees, the growth of many centuries, are in a 

 brief space made available for the thousand requirements of 

 every-day life. But before this has been done rolling-roads have 

 been formed, or tramways laid, involving the destruction of a 

 vast amount of arboreal growth, of elegant flowering shrubs, 

 of fragrant orchids, of delicate herbaceous plants, and of 

 charming ferns, which never again can beautify that scene; 

 for directly the last log has been removed the intelligent bush- 

 man, with a recklessness which would be reprobated by a 

 savage, applies a match to the dead branches, for the mere 

 pleasure of seeing the blaze, and not only destroys thousands 

 of promising young trees, but effectually prevents all possibility 



