46 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE FOREST OF THE PAST. 



ALTHOUGH Tutira when first taken up as a sheep-run was a wilderness of 

 bracken (Pteris aquilina, var. esculenta), it had nevertheless been within 

 a very recent period wholly under forest. In the oozy bog runnels of the 

 central run, where the current scarcely stirs the floating weeds or shivers 

 the tall green reeds, timber is plentiful. The swamps, undrained and 

 drained, are full of it. Through the shrunken surfaces of the latter pro- 

 trude in the drier parts dark peat-preserved boles. In the great drains 



scoured out by flood-water are to be 

 found the crowns and octopus-like roots 

 of trees. Timber lies in the basin of 

 every lake, lakelet, and tarn on the run. 

 It shows beneath the turf of grassed 

 lands whiter in the morning frosts, 

 browner in summer droughts. Surface 

 timber also, chiefly totara (Podocarpus 

 Totara), is, or rather was for thou- 

 sands of posts and strainers have been 

 split from it plentiful. It was most 

 abundant on the most arid parts of 

 the trough of the run. Thereabouts 



there had been a lesser growth of fern, a lesser accumulation of inflam- 

 mable material. The fires, which from time to time used to sweep the 

 countryside, had been from lack of combustible matter less fierce and 

 less frequent in these localities. Great lanceolate-shaped spars curiously 

 gouged and chiselled by fire were common, whilst here and there entire 

 boles remained almost intact. Some of these prone trunks were of 

 great girth ; one lying in the open gave a diameter of twelve feet. 



Totara bole deeply sunk into the soil. 



