42 KAURI, THE WORLD'S LARGEST TIMBER-TREE. 
KAURI: THE LARGEST TIMBER-YIELDING TREE IN THE 
WORLD. 
Two Important Facts ABOUT KaAwvrI. 
Mr. Cheeseman’s investigation into the growth of the Kauri, its 
comparatively quick growth, and its life shorter than has been currently 
stated, was published on the eve of the outbreak of war, June, 1914. 
It thus escaped the notice it deserved, though it is possible that the 
importance of the discovery might not have been appreciated till the 
‘“ Transactions of the New Zealand Institute’ went abroad and got 
circulated amongst professional foresters. . 
Since I spent my five weeks amongst the Kauri trees at Waipoua 
another startling fact has come out. Kauri, according to the records, 
is the biggest timber-tree in the world—the tree that yields the greatest 
bulk of timber ! 
The big Eucalypts of Australia are much taller, the big Sequoias of 
California have stems averaging somewhat thicker and a good deal taller, 
but neither of them carry their thickness up like the Kauri. It is the 
shape of the Kauri trunk that gives to it its unprecedented volume of 
timber. As will be seen below, when one compares the bulk of com- 
mercial timber in the biggest recorded Kauri tree with the official 
record of the timber in the largest ‘‘ big tree’’ of the Calaveras Groves, 
the Kauri has rather more than twice the bulk of tember! 
The big trees of California and of Australia have been the subject 
of exaggeration. This is natural; but the depreciation which, as | 
have shown elsewhere, characterizes the published descriptions of New 
Zealand trees is not easy to understand. Book after book has assigned 
heights to Kauri, White-pine, Rimu, and the glorious Beech forests of 
the south which are two-thirds or three-quarters the real heights of the 
trees. Possibly the writers have confounded bushmen’s measurements 
of bole-heights with total heights. My measurements were taken with a 
verified angular instrument, and this has been confirmed, in one in- 
stance at least, by theodolite and chain measurement by Mr. Phillips 
Turner, a professional Government surveyor. 
Kauri STATURE. 
The largest authentic Kauri tree commonly mentioned in New Zea- 
land lterature (New Zealand Year-book, &c.) is that at Mercury Bay, 
‘Stated as having been 24ft.* in diameter. Dr. Marshall’s popular 
Kc Geography of New Zealand ”’ (p. 323) puts on another foot. Kauri 
trunks are occasionally 25 ft. in diameter,’’ he says. ‘Popular writers 
speak of Kauri boles up to 31 ft. diameter. (‘ New Zealand in Evolu- 
tion,’’ by Scholefield.) When in Auckland I tried to see the Mercury Bay 
tree, but was unable to get further particulars regarding it than that it 
is believed to have been burnt. Kirk, at pp. 144-145, ‘ Forest Flora,”’ 
mentions a tree at Mercury Bay 24 ft. in diameter and 80 ft. bole, and 
another at Maunganui Bluff 22 ft. in diameter. | 
Kairaru: Diameter, 22 ft—Mr. H. P. Kavanagh, late Chief Timber 
Inspector, Auckland, considers that the largest Kauri trees of which 
the growth has been accurately recorded are those that grew in the 



P “4 Mr. P ercy Smith, late Surveyor-General, tells me that it was common knowledge 
in the “sixties” and * seventies ” of last century that there was a huge Kauri tree 
growing on the mountains at the head of the Tararu Creek that falls into the Hauraki 
Gulf, just north of the mouth of the Thames. “This tree was stated by those who had 
seen it to be 28ft. in diameter.” Ny 
