70 



destroying all the vegetation dry enough to burn, and 

 exterminating the annual and the tender kinds. 



In arboreous vegetation, Fiji has many tine speci- 

 mens. Although none of the trees attain the dimen- 

 sions of the mammoth trees of California, nor the 

 gigantic size of some Australian eucalypti, yet they 

 are splendid examples of their respective kinds. On the 

 Tai Levu coast a tree of barringtonia speciosa, vutu, 

 when measured at 6 feet above the ground, was found 

 to be 33 feet in circumference of trunk. The trunk 

 was about 12 feet in length, the loftiest branches were 

 not more than 40 feet from the ground, but so wide 

 spreading that, although the points of the branches 

 had been lopped off, they still covered an area of 

 about half an acre. The charred trunk (half of the 

 trunk was burned) of a dilo tree (calophyllum ino- 

 phyllum) growing on the shore at Rabi measured 

 7 feet in diameter, by a length of 12 feet. The head 

 of the tree was proportionately large, and over- 

 hanging the sea. Some magnificent trees of c'tbi- 

 cibl (cynometra sp.), vesi (afzelia bijuga), and vaivai 

 (serianthes myriadenia), were seen in the moun- 

 tains of the same islands. The trunks of a few 

 of the first named would give an average diameter 

 of 3 feet on a length of 10 feet ; those of the second 

 21 feet on a length of 30 feet ; and the third 2 J feet 

 on a length of 20 feet. Equally good samples of 

 these lives may be seen in other parts of Fiji. On 

 the b.-mks of the Tamavua river, in Viti Levu, 

 there is a tree of dakua (dammara vitiensis) nearly 

 T ,n feel in height. Its trunk, when measured at 

 f; feei above the ground, was found to be 25 feet 

 in circumference. At about 20 feet from the ground 

 the Dunk had been broken, and is now divided into 



