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purposes. The Kowai (Edwardsia microphylla) also, with its mag- 
nificent yellow papilionaceous blossoms, grows in many districts 
to a considerable size. Among the largest forest trees there are 
in addition several representatives from the families of the Myrtaceas 
and Laurinese , and especially the Rata ( Metrosideros robusta ) , the 
trunk of which, frequently measuring 40 feet in circumference, is 
always covered with all sorts of parasitical plants, and the crown 
of which bears bunches of scarlet blossoms ; also the Kahikatoa 
(Leptospermum) , Tawa (Lauras) , Pukatea (Lamella), Karaka (Co- 
rinocarpus) and a great many others. The under-wood is composed 
of bushes and shrubs of the most different kinds , especially species 
of Panax and Aralia, above which the slender Nikau palm (Areca 
sapida) , the sole representative of its genus upon New Zealand, 
rears its sap-green crown in picturesque majesty. 
While this palm and the fern trees remind us by their forms of 
tropical forests , the New Zealand forest owes its tropical luxuriance 
to the countless parasitical weeds , ferns , to the Pandanese (Frey- 
cinetia Banksii), and Orchidese, covering trunks and branches, and 
to the creepers (Bipogonum , Rubus, Metrosideros , Clematis, Passifiora, 
Sicyos, etc.}, which cover the ground as with a natural netting, 
which coil round every stem, run up every limb, glide from head 
to head and entwine the topmost branches of a dozen trees in 
Gordian knots. Thus the forests become impenetrable thickets, 
which sun and air scarce can penetrate, and which have to be cut 
through with the knife or sword at every step the traveller makes 
into the untrodden wilderness. Through the narrow paths of the 
natives it is only with the outmost efforts that a way can be worked 
over the gnarled roots of trees and through the creepers which ob- 
struct the passage at every moment. To the wanderer there are 
especially two kinds of creepers extremely molesting and trouble- 
some, the so-called “supple-jack” of the colonists (Ripogonum parvi- 
Jlorum) , in the rope-like creeping vines of which the traveller finds 
himself every moment entangled; and Rubus Australis, the thorny 
strings of which scratch the hands and face , and which the colon- 
ists, therefore, very wittily call the “bush lawyer.” In the 
