VEGETATION OF THE STATION PRIOR TO SETTLEMENT 99 



vidual trees, woods flourishing on the lower - lying seaward edge of 

 the run. Although restricted in area, this forest of the hinter- 

 land the last shred and relic of the primeval vegetation which 

 had at one time covered the district was representative of both the 

 mixed and unmixed " bush " of New Zealand. Looking downwards 

 on to it from a higher altitude, the eye was primarily arrested by 

 the number of very ancient grey-headed moribund totara (Podocarpus 

 Totara), the very grandsires of the bush their boles measuring 12, 

 14, and 16 feet in diameter. These magnificent trees live for 

 the most part in single grandeur. They are dotted irregularly about 

 the bush dying, so to speak, on their feet, their short stubbed heads 

 conspicuous in the surrounding greenery on account of the lichens 

 glued to the dying boughs. Their great vitality has been sapped 

 by age; their centres are hollow or choked with rotted wood, some- 

 times with mere dry powder. Adown their boles bark hangs loose 

 in enormous strips and sheets. About their mighty roots lie foot- 

 deep accumulations of mouldered wood, piles of bark already shed for 

 trees in the warm wet New Zealand bush thus cleanse themselves, 

 ridding their skins of parasitic growth as birds by washing and dust- 

 baths check lice. Considering not only the tardy growth of the 

 totara, but its still slower senescence, I can never reckon the life of 

 the greatest of these trees at less than one or two thousand years. 

 Perhaps it is more perhaps much more for I have watched during 

 one - third of a century certain dying branches : there has been in 

 them no appreciable change, although that period of time is one-third 

 of the tenth of the span suggested as the minimum duration of 

 life. Perhaps some of these totaras on Maungaharuru were saplings 

 when, twenty hundred years ago, Christ worked in Galilee; at any 

 rate they must be of an enormous age. Flourishing on the spots 

 that especially suit them are to be found also specimens of four 

 other great New Zealand pines: white pine, kahikatea (Podocarpus 

 dacrydiodes) ; niatai (Podocarpus spicatus) ; black pine, miro (Podo- 

 carpus ferrugineus) ; and red pine, rimu (Dacrydium cupressinum). 

 Other large species in the mixed bush are hinau (Elceocarpus dentatus), 

 tawa (Beilschmiedia tawa), and maire (Olea lanceolata). 



In the vicinity of these huge trees lie, coiled or sprawling on the 

 ground like snakes, lianes, lawyers, vines, and clematis stems. Partly 

 dragged up by the growth to which in youth their shoots have clung, 



