CHARACTERISTICS OF NEW ZEALAND FOREST. 49 
as they are often called, which, rope-like, hang from the tree-tops, 
form an impenetrable tangle (fig. 9), or gracefully entwine the smaller 
trees and shrubs. 
Groups or groves of tree-ferns, sometimes 20 or 30 feet in height, 
with enormous feathery leaves like giant umbrellas, are a most 
pleasing feature of the forest (fig. 7). Close-growing, small-leaved 
shrubs of dense habit form thickets. On tree-fern stems, on fallen 
trees, and even on the forest-floor are sheets of delicate filmy ferns. 
Lichens of great size, milk-white or golden or dusky, abound (fig. 26). 
Perched high up in the forest-roof, in the forks of the branches are 
bird-nest-like masses, several feet in circumference, of plants of the 
lily family—the kahakaha (Astelia Solandrv) (fig. 27), or the kowhara- 
whara (Astelia Cunninghamu). Long fronds of ferns and shoots of 
lycopods several feet in height hang drooping from the boughs, and 
certain orchids with aerial roots which can absorb water, and shrubs 
of various kinds too, grow high up on the trees, whose boughs thus 
support veritable gardens. In some few cases the flowers of a tree 
are produced on the thick branches, or even on the trunk, as in the 
kohekohe (Dysoxylum spectabile), and not, as usual, from amongst 
the leaves. Now, should a botanist knowing nothing of New Zealand 
read this description, he would at once conclude it was no account 
of the forest of a temperate climate, but of one in the tropics. And 
this is quite true: the common forest of New Zealand, owing partly 
to its origi, but far more to the moist and equable climate, must 
be classed with the tropical, not with the temperate forests. 
The forest also can tell a good deal about the evolution of the 
apparently wonderful adaptations of certain plants to the conditions 
it provides. On walking through the interior of the forest one can- 
not fail to notice the subdued light, which is so much less intense 
than in the open. Above all things, most plants require sunlight. 
Without this they cannot manufacture in their leaf laboratories their 
necessary food from the “carbonic acid” of the air and the water 
from the soil. In a forest, then, there is what may be called a 
“ struggle” for the sunlight. The tall trees meet the difficulty by 
raising their tops high into the heavens. But with the smaller 
plants it is another matter, for these must either become attuned 
to a mmimum of light or grow in some special way so as to get their 
fair share. Consequently a spindling habit of growth occurs in many 
young forest-trees — long, straight, thin stems, and few lateral 
branches ; ‘‘ drawn up to the light ”’ is the gardener’s phrase. 
4—Plants. 
