490 



Transactions. — Botany. 



Fig. 12. — Trichostomum contorti- 

 folium, U.S. 



1. Perichaetial leaves. 



2. Outside perichaetial leaf. 



3. Upper stem leaves. 



4. Middle stem leaf. 



5. Capsule and operculum. 



Fig. 13. — Trichostomum curvi- 

 thecum, n.s. 



1. Perichaetial leaves. 



2. Outside perichsetial leaf. 



3. Upper stem leaf. 



4. Middle stem leaf. 



5. Capsule. 



6. Peristome. 



Art. XLIV. — On the Disappearance of the New Zealand 



Bush. 



By the Eev. P. Walsh. 



[Read before the Auckland Institute, 19th July, 1896.] 



No one who has lived any length of time in New Zealand can 

 have failed to observe the rapid disappearance of the natural 

 bush, and even the casual visitor discerns the evidence of it in 

 the appearance of the country, though he may not be able to 

 appreciate the rate at which it is going on. Wherever we go 

 — along the coast or inland, on plain or mountain — we find in 

 the gaunt skeletons which disfigure the open, and in the brown 

 and withered margin of the standing forest, unmistakable 

 signs of destruction and decay. It is the purpose of the pre- 

 sent paper to point out some of the principal causes which 

 have combined to produce this state of things, my information 

 on the subject being based on observations made during a resi- 

 dence of thirty years in various parts of the colony. 



There can be little doubt that at some distant period the 

 greater part, if not the whole, of New Zealand was covered 

 with forest. The evidence of this is found not only in the 

 roots embedded m sitii in the open ground and in the re- 

 mains of forest buried beneath the soil, but also in the surface 

 corrugations caused by the falling-over of trees of which no 

 organic traces at present remain. 



Of the causes of the disappearance some have been in 

 operation during the long ages which preceded any human 

 occupation of the country. In the regions of volcanic action 

 there is no doubt that extensive areas of bush were destroyed 

 at various periods by the lava-fiovvs and by the hot stones 

 ejected from the numerous craters, while still larger portions 

 were buried under showers of ash and pumice and volcanic 

 mud. In the northern gumfields, which cover a wide extent 

 of country, whose present vegetation is mostly confined to a 



