SIGHT-SEEING IN NEW ZEALAND. 303 



For ten miles after leaving the Gate Pah, we rode through a 

 rough and rolling country, covered all over with fern-brakes. 

 The soil of these lands seems to be good and deep, but it is a 

 fearful job to get rid of this fern. It seeds back and comes up 

 again and again as fast as the land is plowed and cultivated. 



After this we came to the Oropi forest, or "bush" as it is 

 called in this land of misnomers, eighteen miles of a thick im- 

 penetrable tangle of fern trees, creepers, climbing vines, and 

 giant forest trees. These were to me of surpassing interest .; and 

 I would not have tired studying them if the time had been three 

 days instead of three hours. The lower forest consists of ferns 

 of innumerable varieties and growths, from the minute filmy 

 ferns on the surface, to the tall and splendid tree-ferns 30 to 40 

 feet high. Through these tower up the majestic pines and 

 birches, the Rimu, Totara, and Matai, the Rata, Pukatea, and 

 Kowai, many of them 12 to 15 feet in diameter and two or three 

 hundred feet high. All these are profusely garlanded with 

 orchids and parasitic ferns, and festooned with lianas and creepers 

 away up in their branches as far as the eye can penetrate. But 

 all the trees and plants are strange and unnatural. The pines 

 you would not imagine could belong to the Pin us family. They 

 have no cones nor needle-shaped leaves. Their fruiting is like 

 berries, and their leaves are flat, from oval to lanceolate, and some 

 hanging down like the willow. The birches, the laurels, and the 

 myrtles are these only in name. They have no like species in 

 all the world besides. 



The Rata tree is the great feature of the New Zealand bush. 

 It is the most unique and intelligent tree that ever breathed, I 

 was going to say for it seems to know as much as some animals. 

 When it first shoots up from the ground, it appears to look all 

 around for a Rimu pine. It will not turn out of its way for any 

 other tree ; but if there is a Rimu pine within reach, it sfarts for 

 it and climbs straight up the body, without a leaf or branch until 

 its head is among the upper limbs. Then the Rata sends out 

 branches like other trees, and at the same time the stalk from 

 the ground up begins to push out on each side a line of aerial 

 roots, which gradually creep around the body of the pine until 



