130 PLANTS OP NEW ZEALAND 



half-dozen species belonging to the southern genus Nothofagus, which is found 

 also in South America and Australia. In the northern hemisphere on the other 

 hand, the family is very largely developed, and includes most of the important 

 deciduous trees of North America and the Eurasian Continent. The forests, 

 therefore, of the north temperate zone are really of older type than those of 

 south temperate regions. 



In South America, however, Nothofagus in many places forms as large a 

 component of the flora as in New Zealand. Darwin's description, in "The 

 Voyage of a Naturalist," of the forests of Tierra del Fuego, might well have been 

 written of some bush creek in south-western Otago. Replace Fagus betuloides 

 by a local species, and the Winter's Bark by the closely allied Drimys axillaris, 

 and the picture becomes completely true for New Zealand. 



Probably nowhere else in the southern hemisphere could one find two such 

 similar forests, sundered by an ocean one-third of the circumference of the earth 

 in width. 



THE BEECH FOREST. 



The beech is a most attractive tree, whether growing in 

 countless hosts, or in solitary state. When scattered over a 

 plain, such as the valley of the Upper Hutt, it gives the 

 landscape a spacious and park-like aspect. It is equally as 

 handsome, when it covers the folds of some giant alp with a 

 garment of uniform thickness and changeless hue. Perhaps 

 the beech forest is most beautiful when its depths are illuminated 

 by the rays of sunset. 



It often happens in Canterbury, during a north-west gale, 

 that just before nightfall the sun drops below the heavy 

 curtain of clouds into the clear arch of sky below, and " at 

 evening it is light." As the level beams are thrown into the 

 recesses of some sombre bush-clad ravine in the foot-hills, 

 the sight is one to be remembered for a lifetime. Though 

 quite natural, it seems, from the vividness of its spectacular 

 effects, unnatural. The giant limbs of the trees push forth on 

 all sides with lance-like thrust, and the inter-spaces between 

 their wide-spreading horizontal branches, form pathways, by 

 which the shafted light can penetrate far into the bush. The 

 great halls of greenery are revealed in vista after vista, and in 

 the background are seen the brown, dead leaves, that "lag the 

 forest brook along," for in these drier districts there is little. 



