flower and fruit in great abundance. 
- vial appellation in the Botanical Magazine, 
. under folio 3461. 
Enraptured by the novelty and exuberant 
benevolence of those worthy men had at- 
. more swampy woods on which stream, he 
. observed with astonishment the Kahikatea 
or Swamp Pine (Dacrydium excelsum, 
2 Don) laden with the climbing Freycinetia, 
; rooting rope-like stem, with here 
and there a tuft of leaves, wound itself 
 Spiraly to the summits of those straight 
and lofty trees. After devoting nearly a 
whole month to the neighbourhood of the 
river, he proceeded thence, back to the 
Bay of Islands, by a new route, extending 
: many miles through a heavily timbered 
B Wood, called “ the Great Forest,” through 
e Which the natives had cut a direct line of 
k Path, to facilitate the communication with 
ur Be Missionary Stations on the other coast. 
: une primeval wood, he viewed with 
admiration many fair and noble specimens 
i of the undisputed monarch of the forest, 
i the Kauri (Dammara Australis, Lamb.), 
T with their vast heads towering above the 
other gigantic timbers of those deeply- 
recesses, supporting on their upper 
^u large tufts of idm eL 
à Epiphytes, the species of 1 Astelia, ori- 
^v discovered by Sir Joseph Banks. 
7S also Mr. Cunningham gathered ; 
Specimens in flower and fruit, of 
1 
the em plants are much valued by the natives for 
tege a of the stem upon which the flowers 
est E b ey will climb,” says Mr. Yate, és the high- 
in search of thes 
Lath.) that : cinnatus 
-to imitate Polyglot bird of the woods of New Zealand 
y Li , 
: tion compl vitia d 9f the Rook, to make the decep- 
~ 
THE LATE MR. RICHARD CUNNINGHAM. 
"oT 
those large trees of Laurine, the Tarairi 
and Tawa of the New Zealander. These 
produce large, plum-like fruits, which be- 
ing greedily devoured by the Kukupa, or 
large Wood-Pigeon of those islands (Co- 
lumba Nove Zelandie, Latham), the In- 
dian who may be pursuing his way silently 
through those umbrageous woods, and may 
be provided with a musket, invariably halts 
a short while beneath the trees in their 
fruit season, for the chance of a shot at 
that most beautiful but most stupid of all 
birds of the wood, the flesh of which he 
values highly, not so much on account of 
its flavour or quality, delicious though it 
really is, as the quantity each bird affords. 
In making a hasty sketch of the vegeta- 
ble riches of these regions, it must here 
suffice to notice some of the more remark- 
able, whilst plodding onwards with our 
traveller through the recesses of the Great 
Forest. With this view simply, the fol- 
lowing may be mentioned. 
The genus Laurelia, Juss. (Pavonia, 
Ruiz), the solitary species of which, hi- 
therto known, is the Sassafras of the Chi- 
lian woods, has a second now added to it, 
from the forests of New Zealand, where it 
forms a tree of agreeable aspect, and in 
stature above thirty feet. Another tree, 
elegant in habit, and called by the natives 
Maka-Maka, belongs evidently to Cunont- 
ace@, and is closely allied to Weinmanna ; 
but it constitutes a distinct genus, the flow- 
ers being decandrous, the seeds smooth, 
and the number of the floral envelopes 
uin Veronica salicifolia (Forst.), a 
slender tree, often exceeding fifteen feet in 
height, is in all seasons to be found daily 
inflower. Melicytus macrophyllus (MSS.), 
a second species of the genus, was found, 
its type being among the original discove- 
ries of Sir Joseph Banks: also Metroside- 
ros taxifolia (MSS.), the Aki of the New 
Zealander, which, by means of its rooting 
stem and branches, ascends the highest 
trees, producing terminal clusters of white 
flowers; together with Metrosideros robus- 
ta (MSS.), or the Rata of the natives, a 
noble tree of great dimensions, often attain 
ing an altitude of eighty feet. The Indians 
Tel 
