m 
recall by habit and appearance the idea attached either to trees of 
this family in the northern hemisphere , or to the Araucaria) of 
New Holland and Norfolk Island; while of the families that indi- 
cate the only close affinity between the New Zealand Flora and 
that of any other country (the Myrtacece , Epacridece and Proteacece ), 
few resemble in general features their allies in Australia. From the 
above-mentioned peculiar proportion of the species to the genera 
and orders , on the other hand , it is evident why the New Zea- 
land forest lacks every clearly and decidedly a prominent physiog- 
nomy. Only few trees grow gregarious, and are prominent in the 
landscape by their appearing either in closed forests or as separate 
clumps and groves. These are the Kauri (Dammar a australis ), the 
Kahikatea (Podocarpus dacrydioides) , and the Tawai (black birch, 
Fctgus fusca ). With the exception of the Kauri forests in the 
North, the Kahikatea forests on marshy and swampy river banks, 
and the black birch forest upon South Island, we find nothing that 
would suffer a comparison with the individual character of our pine, 
beech, and oak forests. The New Zealand trees mostly grow so 
intermixed, that more than a dozen varieties may be found on the 
same acre. The forests, therefore, have not any particular physiog- 
nomical character; and it is only by botanically analyzing the inde- 
finite brown-green mass of the forest vegetation, that the beautiful 
and manifold objects constituting it are distinctly observed. 
Among the chief ornaments of the mixed forest are the various 
species of pines. Totara (Podocarpus totaraj and Matai (Podocar- 
pus spicata) are large and beautiful trees found in every forest. 
Rimu (Dacrydium cupressinum) is distinguished by hanging leaves 
and branches; Tanekaha (Phylloeladus trichomanoidesj by its parsley- 
shaped leaves. Alongside of them towers the poplar-shaped Re- 
warewa (Knigldia excelsa) , belonging to the Proteacem; the Plinau 
(Elaeocarpus IdnauJ , the fruit of which is the favourite food of the 
parrots , and the bark of which is used by the natives for dyeing 
one sixth of the phanerogamic Flora, besides 156 shrubs and plants with woody 
stems. In England there are not more than 35 native trees, out of a flora upwards 
of 1400 species. 
