FIJI-NEW ZEALAND EXPEDITION 327 
Wales feather (7odea), and a host of other ferns crowd in be- 
neath. Wild blackberry, gorse, and bracken overrun the clear- 
ings. Clumps of tree ferns arrest the attention at intervals. 
Masses of an epiphyte called gigi load down limbs and trunks 
with a besom of long aralia-like leaves. Lichens, liverworts, 
and mosses cling to tree trunks and moist slopes. Lycopods 
crowd every available space. It is winter, and hence there are 
no flowers except on a species of climbing rata; the only fruit 
is the ‘‘supple jack’’ whose rich red berry clusters hang quite 
out of reach. It must be glorious in the full green of early sum- 
mer when the manuka is a blaze of white bloom. The swamps 
support a wealth of hydrophytes, among them a plant called rapa 
which resembles our American cat-tails. It must be remembered 
that this is an evergreen forest and that the netted-veined leaves 
remain green and on the trees throughout the winter. 
South of Ferguson’s on a strip of relatively flat land the road 
passes through the finest part of the forest. One hundred feet 
above the branches close overhead, and one passes for several 
miles under an arch of indescribable beauty. The light is sub- 
dued, and the driver who goes over the road every few days 
slows up the ear. Everyone is silent. The underbrush and 
ferns are coated with a heavy white frost, the accumulation of 
many days untouched by the sun’s winter rays which are unable 
to penetrate to the floor of the forest. 
Fortunately this great forest is still crown land and may be 
saved from the ax and the fire. We sincerely hope that the 
people of New Zealand will preserve a part of this incomparable 
woodland of the great piedmont rainbelt. From the standpoint 
of its strange trees and the associated cryptogams, the perfectly 
developed straight and well-spaced trunks, sixty to eighty feet 
long, and its matchless beauty the forest should be preserved. 
For generations untold, men will come from all parts of the 
earth to visit this unique assemblage of trees whose strange 
features and primeval grandeur in their insular setting will ap- 
peal to their wonder and admiration, for there are no others 
like them on the face of the earth. 
We had the pleasure of meeting in Westland Mr. Arnold 
Hansson of the Dominion Forest Service and to see something of 
his work in connection with the conservation and planting of 
the crown land forests. He was educated for forestry work first 
at Christiania, Norway, then later at the Yale School of For- 
