224 FORESTS. [PART n. 



varieties of colour as there are species. Their forms 

 likewise belong to the most beautiful in nature : what, 

 for instance, can be more delicate than the graceful 

 rimu-pine with pendent branches ; or the tree-ferns 

 and stately palms ; or the venerable rata, often mea- 

 suring forty feet in circumference, and covered with 

 scarlet flowers whilst its stem is often girt with a 

 creeper belonging to the same family (Metrosideros 

 hypericifolia) ? Sometimes the vines, a foot thick, of 

 another creeper, the aki (Metrosideros buxifolia), 

 also with scarlet flowers, are seen running up to 

 the highest branches of the rata. Of other para- 

 sitical plants, however, the rata-trees are very free, 

 by far more so than some pines, such as the puriri 

 (Vitex litoralis) and some others. 



It is remarkable how little this forest is enliv- 

 ened by living beings : a few birds, it is true, 

 are found in its recesses, whose notes are various 

 and melodious ; but at noon they all seem to re- 

 pose, and the silence is then scarcely ever inter- 

 rupted. 



The formation of which this hilly ridge is com- 

 posed, so far as the luxuriant vegetation permits of 

 its being observed, is a yellowish argillaceous rock, 

 mixed in fragments with the vegetable mould. It 

 is of various degrees of hardness, and in most cases 

 may be observed in conjunction with compact ba- 

 saltic rock, which appears sometimes protruding on 

 the surface, sometimes laid bare in the river-courses. 

 The pebbles in the rivers are whinstone of different 



