18 AUCKLAND DOMAIN TREES. 
Near the native trees are some fine specimens of introduced trees— 
Cypresses, a Tulip tree, and many Oaks. . A Deodar, the best timber-tree 
in the Auckland Domain, is some 20 in. in diameter and shows 50 ft, of 
good straight bole. Near it is a gigantic Macrocarpa Cypress, 5 ft. in 
diameter, and looking about 100 ft. high ; but, alas! nearly all branches. 
These trees are probably older than the native trees, but I was unable to 
secure data. The growth, however, is so far beyond that of the native 
trees that the lesson here given to the forester seems to stand out clearly ; 
Conserve the native trees, for they grow about twice as fast as EF uropean 
forest-trees; but if one has to go to the expense of planting, use intro- 
duced trees, and take the risk of disease or other failure. 
Native Trees, AucKLAND Domain: Firty YEARS PLANTED. 
Trees. Diameter. Heine. 
Kauri bee ... 10 averaging lj5in. by 49 ft. 
Totara ay ap cu v5 16in. by 40 ft. 
Rimu 4 ry LE ib 13in. by 44 ft. 
White-pine ... coe os 15in. by 454 ft. 
Celery-top (Tanekaha) ... 10 ‘4 10in. by 37 ft. 
Miro she toe ma 5 llin. by 39 ft, 
Honeysuckle (Rewa) ... | llin. by 42 ft. 
Karaka - wee Zin. by 45 ft. 
Pohutukawa ... at es (bushy) 57 ft. 
KAURI TENDS TO GROW SLOWLY WHEN YOUNG. 
The Kauri rings on the old cut trees outside Mr. Trounson’s Kauri 
Park mentioned above confirm Mr. Cheeseman’s observation (Trans. N.Z. 
Inst., June, 1914, p. 16) that Kauri rings show little of that decrease 
in size near the bark, which is the case with most other trees. The 
rings I examined showed clearly that the slow-growing period of these 
Kauris had been in their youth, when, as light-demanding trees, they 
had had to fight for their existence with the dense underwood. Once 
above the under-forest Kauri grows away, and it continues its rapid 
growth when, as a member of a sparse over-forest, its great arms are 
flung- abroad to drink in the powerful sunlight of these latitudes, while 
its base is nourished and shielded from sun and wind by the dense 
underwood ; nourished, too—we know not how much—by Mycorhizas 
one by root-parasitism. There is a hidden forest world below the sur- 
eat, ee so far ee not appear to have been much studied in New 
The dees AS to 1t 1n the ‘‘ Transactions of the New Zea- 
Gn Wiitecntwe - hoe h ooker, many years ago, recorded root-nodules 
rice ie ©; Put there are indications that fungus and_ bacterial 
Ay Pp oy A part in the growth of the New Zealand forest. 
auri an m Rolne peek 
bie tne ; mica Tree peolcing the same at Age 50.—At St. Leonards, 
i pennens stump of vemenalis Gum, 35 in. diameter and fifty years 
.c, Shows rings near the bark about the same as Kauri at the same age— 
viz,, in. broad. At tl Soap : om 
ie ; 1e centre the rings are 3in, broad. Tl an 
object-lesson thi ¥ Se Ppt 
J on this stump. It shows the real diff ‘owth 
feestias Kaur; Ss eal difference in grow 
ween Kauri and one of quite th c 
q e quickest-growing of the Gums in 
New Zealand. The difference js ; | 
ence 18 in the first fifty year; 
Gum had grown under normal conditions. ORE th Gren ti asl TE 
