KAURI, THE WORLD'S LARGEST TIMBER-TREB. 47 
mentions a tree which at 10 ft. above the ground was 16 ft. in diameter 
and gave 76,800 sup. ft. of sawn timber. Wools, a quite reliable autho- 
rity, cites a tree yielding 28,800 sup, ft. The biggest timber-yield of 
any Cedar tree cut on the Bellinger River of New South Wales was 
3,666 c. ft., or 43,992 sup. ft. It is probable that no Australian Cedar 
has yielded more than 48,000 sup. ft. of sawn timber; and only very few 
trees were a little larger than 10 ft. diameter and 200 ft. high. (Maiden.) 
As mentioned ‘pnts a tree that in all forests of the New Zealand 
class most recalls the Kauri is the Outeniqua Yellow-wood of South 
Africa (Podocarpus elongata). It gives the characteristic appearance to 
the South African coast forest in the latitude of northern New Zealand, 
making that forest so like a Kauri forest in general appearance that 
a photo of one would do for a photo of the other. The giant Yellow-wood 
of South Africa is about two-thirds the maximum height, and the maxi- 
mum diameter is exactly one-half of that of the largest Kauri trees, 
so that its bulk of timber would work out to less than one-fourth of the 
biggest Kauri trees of New Zealand, 
In equatorial Africa I have seen huge trees, as trees go in Europe, 
but they had tapering stems of the usual form, and would not yield a 
volume of timber comparable to Kauri. One tree, the so-calléd ‘* Pillar- 
wood,’’ in the fine forest on the eastern side of snowy Mount Kenia, had 
a form like Kauri, but I cannot recall diameters over 8 ft. or 10 ft. 
The tropical Baobab (Adansonia digitata) and the Chestnut trees of 
Mount Etna may have a basal diameter equal to New Zealand Kauri, 
but there all resemblance ceases. They have little height, and are far 
from presenting the almost cylindrical shafts of timber seen in the 
Kauri. The Baobab has diameters up to 30 ft., and the Australian form 
nearly the same. A good drawing of this grotesque tree is given in a 
common useful little work, ‘‘ Lindley and Moore’s Treasury of Botany.’’ 
The Baobab is in no sense a timber-tree. Its shape is more that of a 
huge carrot. In parts of Africa the Natives hollow out the tops of the 
trunks to store water. ‘The text-books, however, usually claim it as a 
giant tree. 
The biggest timber-tree I have heard of in England was an Oak in 
south Wales, with a volume of 3,032 c. ft. (Hanson). It was thus about 
one-eighth the size of the record Kauri tree of New Zealand. This 
Knglish Oak sold for £105 as it stood, and cut up yielded £500 worth 
of timber. The record big Oak from the Forest of Dean, so famous for 
its Oaks, was rather smaller. All the very old Oaks in Europe are 
hollow shells. Even if sound they would not come near the giant 
Kauris either in age or timber. 
Tur TAPRERLESS Kauvrt. 
No less an observer than Charles Darwin was the first to place on 
record the remarkable shape of the Kauri tree. The mature Kauri 
trunk is columnar; it shows very little taper. That, combined with its 
large size, is why it cubes out so high, (Plate VIII.) 
When I was in Auckland Mr. Trounson kindly gave me a large-size 
photo of the biggest Kauri known to him. The tree was 17 ft. in 
diameter, and the photo was shown at the recent Auckland Exhibition. 
I have scaled the taper on the photo of this tree. If the photo has any 
distortion it will tend to make the upper part of the trunk smaller. 
But the photo shows 47 mm. at the base and 45 mm. at the crown end 
of the bole, omitting at each end the bulge projecting from the parallel 
