Walsh. — On the Future of the Neto Zealand Bush. 479 



to see an infinite gradation between the portions which re- 

 main practically in their virgin condition on the mountain 

 heights and sheltered gorges and the outlying fragments in 

 the lower and cultivated districts ; and that, in proportion as 

 it is affected by the new conditions, the bush will be more 

 clear and open, the trees fewer in variety, and of a shorter 

 and bushier habit. There will also be an increasing admix- 

 ture of the foreign element, and less and less of the original 

 undergrowth. 



■p-' 



Behaviour of Individual Trees. 



As a help towards the solution of the question at issue, I 

 append a few short notes on the behaviour of some of the 

 most important trees under the ordeal to which they have to 

 submit. 



The ^a.?iri'.— Naturally the kauri first claims our attention. 

 It is painful to think that this noble and beautiful tree is des- 

 tined within a comparatively few years to become practically 

 a thing of the past. As noticed in my former paper, the floor 

 of the kauri bush is covered with a thick coating of vegetable 

 humus {pukahu), which is rendei^ed highly inflammable by a 

 mixture of dead leaves, particles of gum, and scales dropped 

 from the resinous bark ; so that, even if the trees are not 

 felled for timber, they run a constant risk of being killed by 

 fire. Under very exceptional circumstances a few single 

 specimens, or small clumps isolated in the mixed bush, may 

 manage to survive in some deep and sheltered gully ; and 

 these, together with the "rickers," too small to be worked to 

 advantage, and the seedlings in the "second growth," will 

 soon be all that is left. After the fire has passed two or three 

 times over the site of a kauri bush the land generally settles 

 down to a short growth of tea-tree scrub. 



The Rata.''- — The rata, or at least the northern variety, is 

 also to a great extent doomed to disappear, though generally 

 by a different process. Starting in life as an epiphyte among 

 the branches of some lofty tree, the rata sends down its aerial 

 roots, which, on reaching the ground thicken and gradually 

 enlace the trunk of its supporter, often squeezing it to death, 

 at the same time putting out great spreading branches above, 

 and eventually becoming the largest and most conspicuous 

 tree in the forest. Robust and vigorous as it appears, how- 

 ever, it cannot long stand the new conditions. First we miss 

 the grand crown of crimson bloom ; next we notice the 

 gradual shrinking of the rounded tufts of foliage ; and soon 

 the spreading limbs are but a giant cluster of stags' horns, 



* For ail excellent account of the rata, vide Kirk's " Forest Flora of 



New Zealand," s.z). 



