POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
375 
chestnut, tuscarpus edulis. Like other chestnut-trees, 
the mape is of stately growth and splendid foliage. It 
is occasionally seen in the high grounds, but flourishes 
only in the rich bottoms of the valleys, and seldom 
appears in greater perfection than on the margin of a 
stream. From the top of a mountain I have often been 
able to mark the course of a river by the winding and 
almost unbroken line of chestnuts, that have towered 
in majesty above the trees of humbler growth. The 
mape is branching, but the trunk, which is the most 
singular part of it, usually rises ten or twelve feet 
without a branch, after which the arms are large and 
spreading. - 
During the first seven or eight years of its growth, 
the stem is tolerably round, but after that period, as 
it enlarges, instead of continuing cylindrical, it 
assumes a different shape altogether. In four or five 
places round the trunk, smaill projections appear, extend¬ 
ing in nearly straight lines from the root to the branches. 
The centre of the tree seems to remain stationary; 
while these projections increasing, at length seem like so 
many planks covered with bark, and fixed round the tree, 
or like a number of natural buttresses for its support. 
The centre of the tree often continues many years with 
perhaps not more than two or three inches of wood 
round the medula, or pith; while the buttresses, though 
only about two inches thick, extend two, three, and 
four feet, being widest at the bottom. I have observed 
buttresses, not more than two inches in thickness, pro¬ 
jecting four feet from the tree, and forming between 
each buttress natural recesses, in which I have often 
taken shelter from the rain. When the tree becomes 
old, its form is still more picturesque, as a number of 
