Forest 137 
in New Zealand defined a “central or totara district”, which included all the 
forest-lands of the East Cape, Volcanic Plateau and Wellington portion of the 
Ruahine-Cook botanical districts. Now although his area as a whole certainly 
contained abundant totara, yet there are also rimu, kahikatea and other forest- 
associations and it is probable that the actual totara-forests were limited, as 
now, to the Volcanic Plateau from the N. and W. of lake Taupo to the main- 
trunk line. Elsewhere there were most likely rimu-totara and rimu-totara-matai 
associations. In the South Island totara-forest appears to have been almost 
restricted to the Eastern district, although the species is of wide distribution 
and certainiy occurred in considerable quantities in all the districts, except 
North Otago, while in the Western ?. Halli is the eg species of the 
lower subalpine forest. 
At one time, totara forest was much more wide-spread iı in the Eastern 
‚and North Otago districts than is now the case, but how long ago this was 
who can say? All we know is that totara logs lay on the ground in abundance 
‘in Central Otago and parts of Canterbury now treeless. There is no clue 
as to what caused the destruction of these ancient forests. The story goes 
that there was a vast forest-fire in pre-European days, but it is hard to see 
how such could cause the wholesale and absolute destruction or why the 
fallen logs remained. Still more remarkable is the fact ofaa forest, still unde- 
stroyed, marking the limit of the western rainfall. The climate too, where those 
tree-remains lie, is distinctly too dry for the natural occupation by totara forest 
and I can only conclude with SPEIGHT (ıgır: 417) that the forest came into 
existence during a much wetter period than the present. This would also 
account for the rarity of Dacrydium cupressinum on Banks Peninsula, the wet 
. elimate favouring its establishment, but with increasing dryness the totara and 
other more xerophytic plants made headway, eventually replacing the rimu. 
But there still linger on Banks Peninsula a few examples of Nothofagus, which 
may be considered-a remnant of a forest, earlier than the rimu, established 
during the ancient steppe-climate of Canterbury referred to further on (Part IV). 
This, during the wet period which favoured the establishment of the almost 
 vanished totara association of Otago-Canterbury, would be gradually replaced 
in the still wetter -climate of Banks Peninsula by the rimu. Nor does the 
occurrence of Podocarpus spicatus in abundance on Banks Peninsula along. with | 
 totara offer rebutting evidence. On the contrary that species is distinetly xero- 
 phytic in its remarkable juvenile form and tolerates less hygrophytic Eon 
than D. cupressinum. 
Wherever totara forest is, situated, its Samen is similar to. that of 
er of the a 
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